A Rose Among the Briars
by Mercury Gray
Summary: Pressured by his father into a marriage of convenience, Boromir of Gondor is forced to reconsider his views on married life and women in general while his intended tries to come to terms with her own dilemmas. AU Boro/OC
1. Chapter 1

**A Rose Among the Briers: A Lord of the Rings Fanfic**

_The lily has a smooth stalk,_

_Will never hurt your hand;_

_But the rose upon her brier_

_Is lady of the land._

_There's sweetness in an apple tree,_

_And profit in the corn;_

_But the lady of all beauty_

_Is a rose upon a thorn._

_When with moss and honey_

_She tips her bending brier,_

_And half unfolds her glowing heart,_

_She sets the world on fire._

- The Rose, Christina Rossetti

* * *

No man who valued his life and his limbs would have dared to use the phrase "caught off his guard" to readily describe Boromir son of Denethor, Captain-Heir of Gondor and High Warden of the White Tower. To even suggest that such a man as he was, who had spent his entire life in the service of the Tower and in the business of war, could be caught off guard was both an insult to him and an insult to the City he served. But his brother _might_ have ventured to use such an expression -- just this once -- to describe the look of utter confusion on his brother's face as the latest missive from their father was read aloud to him.

"He desires what?" Boromir asked, his voice half-exasperated and wholly angry.

Faramir scanned the letter for the pertinent passage again, having lost his place glancing up to gauge his brother's reaction. "The Steward desires...for the High Warden to return home with all due speed and diligence to... discuss matters of high importance to the state...as well as the matter of his impending engagement," he repeated, glancing up at his brother for any indication that he should perhaps cast the letter aside and seek for a place to hide from his sibling's not-inconsiderable temper.

"My impending engagement?" the elder son of Denethor repeated back to his brother.

"Yes, I believe I have read just that phrase twice now," Faramir ventured, prompting a scowl from his brother for his cheek.

"I hope our father means to tell me when it was decided I was to be engaged, for truly, he told me nothing of this happy proposition!" Boromir roared, slamming his fist on his littered worktable and causing the mass of maps, scout reports and supply lists to jump a little, a few wayward bits falling to the floor with the blow. "I have not time for such frivolities, Faramir! Perhaps Father grows a little unenlightened of our situation here in Osgiliath, that he thinks I have hours enough to come home and play the lover with some noblewoman."

"Perhaps Father grows a little weary of your eternal bachelorhood and desires a grandchild to assure the continuance of his line," his brother suggested lightly. "He speaks of your impending engagement -- that means to me that the calendar for such things is as yet undecided. But," Faramir paused, holding up a finger to still his brother's criticism, "He also desires you to come home at his command, which means to me that he has not decided the _when_ but rather the _who_, and he desires you to meet her urgently."

"I was always given the impression love did not follow time-tables," the Captain-Heir quipped sharply, raising just a hint of a smile in his brother's face.

"Love will follow a timetable for Father, of that there can be no doubt. He will command it so and have it so, whether the two concerned parties desire it or not," Faramir judged. "And any road, I think this union will happen if Love decides to enter in not at all." His brother gave a dry laugh and turned back to his paperwork, leaving the letter and its contents unanswered for the time being.

But Boromir of Gondor was not the only one rising early to read letters from far-off family. Down the spiked peaks of the Ered Nimrais, nearly half a world away, where the Shadow was still a distant thought and the cares of Middle Earth were not yet fully occupying the minds of the people, another person was opening another letter full of unwelcome news.

In a castle by the sea, far less grand than the Tower of Guard in all its alabaster splendor, the serving woman Maireth of Anfalas was busying herself preparing a breakfast tray for her mistress, the lady of the castle, humming under her breath as she pushed the door open and made to rouse the young woman from her bed.

"Come along, my lady, the sun's risen and it is time for little ladies to be rising, too," she announced, ready to rouse the sleeping lump hidden beneath a mound of coverlets in the large canopied bed.

"I wish you would stop calling me 'little', Maireth; I have been nearly two heads taller than you for years," said a young woman's voice archly from a seat by the window, open wide to admit all the early southern light they could.

Maireth jumped a little as her mistress' voice issued from the chair, realizing that the pile of bedclothes she had taken to be her mistress was merely a pile of bedclothes. She shook her head and set to making the bed, setting the breakfast she had been carrying down on a worktable. "Shouldn't scare me like that, Rhoswen, I'm not as young as I once was. And aren't you up at early hours today! The dawn's not two hours past and –" she expertly ran a hand over the bedsheets. "These sheets are as cold as if they hadn't been slept in."

"I had correspondence to answer, and I did not think I would have time later," the young woman explained, smiling at her servant's unsubtly hidden look of displeasure as she glanced up and turned over her letter. "And the fire needed tending," she added, as if a more necessary matter like fires might iron away her rather frivolous reason for rising early from Maireth's displeasure.

But this announcement only made the older woman's frown deepen. "Sulwen should have seen to that! Give that girl a good slap when I see her next, I will."

"Sulwen's only crime is that we were short of servitors at table last night and she was required late. She is not used to such little sleep. She has come and made her apologies already, Maireth, which I have accepted in good grace. The offense was not so grave."

Maireth scowled and went on her way mumbling about being short-handed and the castle needing so much done; Rhoswen merely turned her attention back to her letters and shook her head. She read on in the cool, early morning silence until the door opened once again to admit a rather bedraggled and very tired looking younger maidservant, her sea-gray livery looking as though it might have been slept in.

"Begging your pardon, my lady, Maireth sent me back to see to your fire again," she said as quietly as she could muster, practically dragging a heavy metal basket full of wood with her.

"Maireth should have let you go on your way, the fire is quite fine," Rhoswen said with half-hidden exasperation, turning from her letter to watch the girl load a log onto the fire with a very heavy pair of tongs. "Leave the rest – it's not so cold in here." She glanced at the wood with a thrifty eye and her mind jumped to the column in the house accounts where the bills for such things were reckoned. _Not so cold that I'll be reckless with the wood, any road,_ she thought to herself. _So expensive. And Father renting a house in the city has not been kind to our coffers, either._

"My lady'll catch her death, sitting there in her nightgown!" Sulwen said scrupulously, but she did as she was told and backed away from the fire, leaving it as a small but cheery blaze. She looked as though she knew she needed to go but wanted to stay anyway, and grabbed a rag from her pocket as if her real intention all along had been to begin dusting the few objects of furniture in the room. "Who's writing to you, my lady?" she asked, running her rag over a polished driftwood chair and flicking the edge of the rag in and out along the chair's many nooks and crannies.

"Oh, this is from my father," Rhoswen replied. "He writes from Minas Tirith. See how grubby the back has become?" she asked, holding up the letter so Sulwen could see (if she could not read the writing on it) that the outer page of the letter bore many grimy thumbprints.

"And is he well, the Lord Golasgil?" Sulwen pressed. If Rhoswen thought this conversation odd, she didn't say. Perhaps she, like her maid, only wanted someone to talk to.

"This letter is some three weeks old, I should hope that he is still as well as he is here. He writes – wrote – that he is well and happy in Minas Tirith, and his reception with the Lord Steward has been very warm. He also says he is hopeful that his affairs with the Lord Steward go as he has planned them." Rhoswen laid aside the first letter and picked up the next. "This is his next – only two weeks gone! They must have overtaken one another on the road."

Sulwen nodded and went back to her dusting until Rhoswen breathed in sharply, as if something in this next letter frightened her.

"My lady? Does something trouble you? Bad news from Minas Tirith?"

For a few moments the lady was silent. "No," said Rhoswen, her voice dry and barren. "No, only the best news," she added, though she did not sound convinced of this herself. "I am to be married," she said finally, rising from her chair and going to her window, looking out at the sea out beyond the castle walls. The idea seemed to give her pain.

"My lady, that's wonderful!" Sulwen said happily, wishing inwardly that her own father would hurry up and let her marry. "Is he a lord from the East? Or perhaps one of the men of Rohan – perhaps you'll be used to make a treaty and go and live with the Rohirrim! Oh, my lady, that would be wonderful – and they could write songs about you!"

At the window, Rhoswen smiled sadly, glad that Sulwen could not see her crying. Sometimes the maidservant's simple joy was a blessing. "He does not say who I am to marry, only that I am to go to city to meet… my intended, and take counsels with my father."

There was a censorious cough from the doorway, and both women turned to see Maireth, the older servingwoman frowning at the younger maid near the fireplace. "Sulwen, you have duties elsewhere. See to them, and leave the lady to her work," she said sternly. Sulwen bowed her head, stowing her cleaning rag and leaving quickly, not daring to look Maireth in the eyes.

Rhoswen sighed. "I suppose you heard all that," she said plainly, turning back to the window.

"I've looked after you since you were small enough to hold in one arm. You couldn't hide a conversation from me if you tried," Maireth declared. "Why does this news vex you so?"

"I have no wish to leave Anfalas, and the sea," the lady said. "I have always desired to marry a man from a coastal fief, where I know the customs and people."

"You have a duty, my lady," Maireth reminded. "To your father, and your house."

"Oh, ever have I known it is my duty," Rhoswen affirmed. "I only wish it did not take me so far from the places I love. They have no view of the sea in the East. I will smell no salt wind there, and hear no gulls."

"In marriage you leave your childhood behind. Better to leave behind childish places also. You will be going to Minas Tirith, the city of Kings, the Splendor of the Southlands!" the servingwoman said strongly, trying her utmost to be persuasive.

But Rhoswen, it seemed, was not to be persuaded. "There have been no kings in Gondor for an age, Maireth. I go to a city of war, where I am told they know no joy."

"Then bring yours with you, lady, and brighten dark places," the older woman counseled. "Perhaps you will find solace in your husband there. They say the blood of Númenor is stronger there, and the men taller and fairer to look upon."

Rhoswen nodded, murmuring her assent. "I have finished my letters," she announced, striding away from the window. "Call for a page and send him to my brother with the message that the Lady his sister has earnest desire for words with him. And tell him also to bring a map," she added sadly. "I have need to plan a journey to the Tower of Guard."

* * *

Boromir looked up fondly at the bright white walls of the King's House and the Tower of Ecthelion, a small part of him glad to be home, even if it was for such a wretched affair as this. _One day all of this will be mine_, he thought to himself, ascending the thick white steps that lead to the inside of the King's House. _Mine and my family's, _he added grimly. _Let me not forget why I am here._

The hallways of the King's House were quiet, the footsteps of even the servants only a smooth shuffling against the marble floors. Boromir's heavy boots, so well designed for climbing battlements and kicking down the bodies of invading orcs, rang out heavy in the silence. If no one knew the Captain-Heir was returning from from Osgiliath, they soon would.

He was just about to knock on the heavy door opening onto the side of the hall when someone behind him cleared her throat. "My lord Boromir, you are returned to us alive and whole, I see," a silky, cultured voice said evenly from behind Boromir in the hall.

"My lady Serawen," Boromir said, backing away from the door as he recognized the voice of the Keeper of the Keys' daughter and turning on one heavily-worn bootheel to face the court-beauty that had spoken to him.

"Rumor has reached me that you are home to celebrate some happy news, I think," the lady said, keeping her tone mysterious enough to arouse interest in what she had to say, a special skill of hers that Boromir had never seen duplicated. "An engagement, some say."

"Have you spies in the House of Denethor, that you know our secrets and our plans?" Boromir asked, smiling a little at Serawen's pleased and catty smile.

"My father is Keeper of the Keys; I make it my business to know what goes on in the House he guards," said the lady simply. "So it is true. And you have not been told the lady's name, I gather," she said, studying his face and finding her answer there fast enough. "That is a pity. I think that I could tell you of her, if you did."

"Are you not yourself engaged to be wed, Lady Serawen?" Boromir asked, his voice just a little curt, to make sure she took home his point that he could have nothing to do with her. It had long been her intention to wed the Captain-Heir, and he, along with every man in the city, knew it. It would not have been a bad match, for she was beautiful and he was renowned, and certainly he had desired her enough when there had been time for such things.

She was beautiful, and reckoned so by many; lithesome and finely featured, with thick hair the color of the season's first honey when it is set out in the sun. But her beauty hid another aspect of her countenance that was not so joyful in its designs. She was a political creature, first and foremost, a woman bred among the advisors and councilors of the Steward, well-used to machination and plots. Though she often professed to love him, something in Boromir's heart chilled when she spoke of such things. The ruthless and cold, masterful part of him delighted in her silent command of the women and men around her, but he could never see being married to her. _I pity the man who binds that chain around himself-- he would never be his own master after taking __that__ to bed,_ Boromir mused. He kept his face impassive, merely observing her, wondering how she might respond.

Serawen brushed his words aside with a disdainful glance. "He is the master of some small place -- Pinnath Gelin, or another backwater. I daresay I shall not live there when we are wed." _It is a sign of her own pride and ambition that she throws away our provinces so easily_, Boromir marked. "No, I will make him buy me a house, here, in the city, for entertaining in. Away from his provincial ways and safe in the arms of the city." She drew closer to him, reaching up on her toes and leaning with light pressure on his arm to set her lips near his ear, seductively close. "Perhaps, my lord, when you are married, you will find you have need of a mistress as well as a wife," she suggested softly, her breath so warm on his skin that Boromir thought she might kiss him here in the corridor.

"You should have been named Corunwen, Lady, for you are too cunning by half for the name you bear," Boromir said, trying to keep his voice level. It had been many months since he had felt a woman's touch.

She laughed lightly, the sound making his skin tremble. "Think about it," she said, slipping down from her perch as someone else joined them in the hallway.

"My lady Serawen." Faramir's voice rang out with a censorious tone in the corridor, incongruously loud against the whispers Boromir had just struggled to hear. Evidently he had finished stabling their horses and had come to join his brother for their father's counsels.

"My lord Faramir," Serawen said, making her curtsey to the younger son of Denethor in her own grand style. Boromir was amazed for a moment that she had managed to move so far away from him in such a short space of time -- now she hardly looked as though she had been suggesting improper things in the Captain-Heir's ear just minutes before. "I was wishing your brother good health and congratulating him on his safe return."

"Bestow your wishes on his behalf rather as prayers for the city," Faramir entreated coldly, locking eyes with her. "They would do more good in that manner."

Serawen nodded, her face sickeningly sycophantic again as she curtseyed again and left.

"Tell me you have not been listening to that serpent," Faramir said strongly and quietly as Serawen swept around a corner and out of sight.

"Serpent, you call her?" Boromir asked, interested in what had roused his brother so.

"She sows hatred and spits poison. Every lie and rumor she manufactures or spreads is bent towards one thing, and one thing alone, and that is power. She will hurt you if it means her own betterment, and I believe earnestly she would sell her soul to Sauron if it meant that she could wear a crown," Faramir scowled. "Even if it were made of iron and beset with skulls as jeweling. Be wary of her, brother. She means evil."

"Most women do," Boromir said cynically as the doors to the King's Hall were opened to them and their names were announced.

Faramir snorted. "And Father wonders why you have never married on your own time," he murmured, following his brother into the austere silence of the black and white marble hall. Their father had been sitting at his council table with his assembled advisors, but he rose as Boromir approached, stepping away from the table with arms spread wide.

"My son returns!" Denethor said happily, pulling his elder child into a strong embrace and thumping him on the back. "Yet we have captains who prize their orders above their own happiness! Council is done for the morning," He said casually towards the rest of the table, allowing the rest of the lords assembled there to stand and make their good-byes. "My son and I have urgent business to discuss."

"Father, I have also brought Fara…" Boromir began, but he trailed off as his father's gaze fell on his younger brother. Denethor's eyes darkened, and a scowl appeared on his face.

"So I see you have seen fit to return home as well," the Steward said disdainfully, his frown keeping Faramir from coming too close – the younger son stayed a full pace behind the elder, his pose meant to appear subservient while his brother's was to act as a shield should Denethor's temper flare. And the Steward's temper had been growing these past several months, though both sons were at a loss to explain why. "Who commands if both my sons are here?"

"Fuithon has the garrison at Osgiliath and Madril commands in Ithilien," Faramir supplied. "If we are home but for a day or two the change will do no harm. They are both able commanders, and the men trust them."

Denethor's scowl deepened, but at least he said nothing more on the subject to Faramir. "Doubtless your brother will need his rest when our meeting is over," he said, looking away from his younger son as he did this. "Go and see that your rooms are ready."

Faramir exchanged a glance with his brother and bowed out of the room, leaving as silently and respectfully as he had come. Denethor paid him little mind and turned his full attention instead to his elder son, the Steward sitting down in his chair and arranging his robes just so over the throne-like construction's arms.

"So, what think you of our plan, my son? I am so pleased that my negotiations ended as I had hoped."

"Father, this is madness!" Boromir said baldly, not really caring if any servant should be around to hear him. "If there should be a need to marry have it be Faramir. I do not have time for it."

"Is Faramir my oldest?" Denethor asked sharply. "Is Faramir my heir? Let him take your duties to _make_ time for you. And it has all been decided, all arranged. She is very pretty, your intended, and will do well for you, I think. Her father tells me she is a most obedient girl. From the provinces – I will not bore you with details."

"Girl, father?" Boromir asked, not liking the sound of the word on his tongue. "Tell me you have not robbed a cradle for this bride of mine."

"Nineteen years old, not so very young at all," Denethor said lightly, brushing his son's concern aside. "I thought perhaps younger might be better, let us not forget the purpose of this match. Her mother had four sons, very strong, hardy fellows they are, too, by all accounts, and they have less of the old blood then we do!"

_So it __is__ another heir that he desires,_ Boromir thought to himself. "And why could a woman not be found among the nobles of the city? Why must she come here?" he pressed on, trying to see his father's mind in all of this.

"Are there yet ladies of the City who follow their husbands?" Denethor asked, laughing grimly at his own joke. "Better she come from the out-provinces, where they are still raised biddable, and docile. And if she is of little consequence, easier to send her away," he suggested to his son, every note in his voice speaking of matters Boromir did not care to partake in.

"Why now, Father? Have we not more urgent matters than my marriage?" he asked, trying to steer his father back to waters he understood.

Denethor turned to his son with a grim look. "You do not grow younger, my son, nor do I, and the Enemy is ever stronger. This is merely a surety against my line, against your line. A child could be sent away, a promise of return, as Valandil was to Isildur…" he trailed off, lost in thought, and for one moment the look in his eyes seemed to suggest to Boromir that the Steward saw himself as king, another Elendil, fighting for the preservation of his lands. "Come, come, it will not be so very difficult," he snapped dismissively, seeing plainly his son's obvious lack of enthusiasm for this plan. "When was it ever hard to warm a lady's bed?" He asked sharply. Seeing no other option but to agree, Boromir merely nodded. Satisfied, Denethor returned to his table, ringing a small silver gong as a signal for food to be brought.

"Shall you stay for the noon-tide, or have you more pressing matters with your brother?" he asked, watching the servants process in with their appropriately covered trays, the servitors unveiling the delights underneath for the benefit of their master. Boromir's stomach reminded him all he had eaten for his breakfast was some hardtack and a little wine, and the appearance of so many fine dishes made him a little angry, thinking of the garrisons out in Ithilien eating salt horse and withered apples for their noon-time meal.

"I must return to Osgiliath as soon as I am able, as Faramir has already said. I will dine in my rooms…and return in the morning," he said decidedly. Denethor looked fondly at his elder son and tucked into his own meal, a sure sign that Boromir was permitted to leave.

"I am no Isildur," Boromir said under his breath as he left, his father's reference to the ill-fated king of Arnor ringing ominously in his mind. "And my son will be no Ranger."

* * *

Oh, it's big, it's bad, and it's back. Five years ago a story with a remarkably similar storyline made its debut on this site to rave reviews and the misconception that I was a college student. Now I am a college student, considerably wider versed in the ways of both the writing world and the real one, and I'm revisting "Rose." It's not a cosmetic edit – it is a different story. I gutted the original story (which can still be read on this site) took the plot and the characters, and started at the beginning – with two letters to two people who were in time going to be married.

It's new and original material even if it's an already used subject matter, which means it's not a violation of the site rules, so please, don't go reporting me, 'kay?

This story's been giving me a lot of grief as I've begun re-writing it, so I'd love to hear your thoughts, whether you read the original version or you're just now coming upon the new one.


	2. Chapter 2

A Rose Among the Briars: Chapter Two

* * *

_How can I tell the signals and the signs  
By which one heart another heart divines?  
How can I tell the many thousand ways  
By which it keeps the secret it betrays?  
-- _Emma and Eginhard, H.W. Longfellow

* * *

"So, your young lady arrives soon," Faramir began as he hefted saddlebags back onto his horse, preparing for the journey back to Minas Tirith. It had been three weeks since Denethor had broken his news, and to all observers, it looked as though the High Warden would rather the whole business be forgotten about rather than discussed. And so three weeks had gone by without comment. But Denethor had summoned his son back again, promising a meeting with the young lady, and with a stony face Boromir was obeying his father's wish, though he still wished no one to talk about it, if possible.

"According to Father," Boromir said blandly. "He speaks in his letter as though she were already in the city. But he will not say where she is from. She could be from Harandor, for all I know of her."

"And then would she not be some maiden like a reed, swathed in veils and swaying as she goes, as the song says?" Faramir asked. Boromir rolled his eyes and nudged his brother with his elbow for his impudence.

"Speak no more on it and let us get home without remembering why we are summoned back," the Captain-Heir said blackly.

The journey back to the City was without incident, a short ride from the garrisons at Osgiliath through the Rammas Echor, the outer wall around the Pelennor Fields and the townships that lay scattered around the city. But strangely, the line of merchants and farmers carting their wares into the city seemed to be moving slower than usual.

"Why is there this infernal delay?" Boromir growled, nudging his horse out of the line of merchant's carts making for the city and moving up to the gate to see where the trouble was. Faramir followed, wondering if Boromir had slept poorly last night or if their reason for returning today had turned his brother's mood as foul as their father's.

"Sergeant, what is the reason for this?" the Captain Heir thundered, stern from his position above the guardsman at the gate.

"Begging your pardon, sir, but this lady here," the sergeant pointed to the company of house-thains surrounding what appeared to be a lady and her maidservant, "She says she has business in the city, sir, but she carries no letter of conduct and admits she has been given no password. I'm under orders, sir, and she won't stand aside!"

"I am Gondorian born and bred, and I have as much right to enter the city as any man in the Steward's livery!" the woman announced earnestly. "My father has business with the Steward himself, and if you will but look at his letter, you will see his seal!" she added, brandishing a piece of parchment that looked as though it had been brandished this morning a bit more than it had originally been intended to.

Boromir glanced from the lady and her company, to the scowling sergeant and then laughed, both at the lady's distressed sincerity and the sergeant's grim frown. "Do you suppose the servants of the enemy now ride to war disguised as maidens, Sergeant? Let the lady and her company pass – I will vouch for her and direct her as she needs." He discreetly tapped the horn at his hip, a subtle reminder to the sergeant that he had the authority to make such a decision, and the sergeant scowled, bowing to his commander's will and gesturing for his men to stand down. The lady passed through the gates with her retinue behind her, and the two brothers followed, cutting around the guards to take a place near the head of the group.

The lady paused to allow them to catch up to her, bowing her head in greeting. "Thank you, sir," she said, addressing herself to Boromir. "It was nobly done."

"It is my duty to be courteous, as it is theirs to ask questions and obey orders," Boromir said plainly. "We are not so fortunate with our neighbors here that our gates may stand open and unguarded. I take it you are a stranger in the City?" He asked in what he hoped was a kindly manner.

"Is it so plain?" she asked, smiling a little in embarrassment as she nudged her horse forward in a walk, guiding it through the streets of the first level, following the lead of her guide.

"When you come and go again," Boromir explained, "you will need a letter of conduct from the Steward, signed and sealed in his hand, or the captain of your guards will need to be supplied with the pass-words to the City's gates. Mere threat of force or the mention of a noble's name is not enough here in Minas Tirith," he added solemnly. "The men who keep the gates have seen more terrible things than angry young women threaten them."

The lady nodded, looking a little miserable that she should be caught being so foolish. "How many pass-words would be needed?" she asked, her voice much quieter than it had been when she had shouted at the guardsman.

"Only eight, my lady – one for the Rammas Echor, the outer wall which you had already passed through, and seven more for the gates to the seven levels." _The men at the Rammas may need to be chided – they should have stopped her there, by all rights._

She nodded gravely. "I shall remember that in future," she promised. In her silence, Boromir tried to see a little more of her face, but her hood, pulled tightly over her head, shaded much of her features from view. A curl of jet black hair escaped the hood's snare, and Boromir was left only to imagine what the rest of the head looked like.

"Where are you bound in the city, my lady?" Boromir asked, amused in some small way by her naïveté in matters he had known since childhood and the business-like way she accepted them.

"To the house of the Lord Golasgil, my father. He tells me it is high up in the city, but," and here she looked away again, abashed, "I have not been told where. I had not realized Minas Tirith was so...large. I do not seek to trouble you," she added quickly, and Boromir smiled again.

"It would be discourteous to leave you wandering without map or guide, my lady, since, as you say, you are stranger here and know neither highways nor byways. Let us lead you," Boromir offered, glancing back at Faramir as if to say, 'We will do this, and you will say nothing about it.'

"If it is no great trouble…" she began, again looking unsure, glancing between the two of them from underneath her hood.

"We have business with the Captain-Heir," Faramir put in, shooting his brother a similar smile, "And it is no great distance from the sixth level to the Steward's house. We bear dispatches," he added for the lady's benefit – she had looked as though she had been wondering what business two captains could have with the leader of the City's entire military forces.

"Then I would be glad of the help, and my guard also," she said thankfully, setting her horse in step with Boromir's and following him up the causeway into the city.

As she gazed up at the city in wonder, taking in the towers and heights of the climbing white stone as if only a child noticing things for the first time, Boromir could not help but be amused yet again. Having lived so long within the city's walls such things no longer gave him any wonderment, but to see such love and such admiration on the face of another made his heart beat faster for it.

"Have you ever seen the White City before, my lady?" He asked kindly, and the young woman turned towards him, startled from her reverence and, Boromir thought, just a little taken at having been caught at such a child-like pursuit.

"I have never seen the glories of Minas Tirith except in stories, Captain," she admitted. "As I have told you, I am only a visitor here, and that only for a short time. Still, it is wonderful all the same," she added, glancing back at the carven stone and allowing herself a little slip of smile. Boromir nodded, a small smile creeping into his own features despite his attempts to stay as grave as possible.

"From whence do you come?" He inquired, noting the mud on her cloak and wear of her garments. She had been on the road some days, it seemed; her horse was tired and her cloth, while good, was simple and unadorned, the guise of a woman (of some standing at least) out on a journey of some weight. And with a guard of house-thains and a waiting-maid, no less. Perhaps her father had some power. The cut of her hood was provincial, he thought, not at all what the noble born women of Minas Tirith were wearing these days, or what he remembered them wearing, at the least. Perhaps she has not the need or desire to follow the fashion where she comes from, he wondered to himself.

"Anfalas," came the reply.

"Anfalas!" Boromir repeated, his mind's eye drawn to the large map in his father's study and the little province of Anfalas, far out along the mountains, near the sea-coast. "You are a long way from home, Lady."

"We have been riding near a fortnight," the lady supplied. "It has been a long journey, and I am glad of the end of it."

"It is a mighty distance for a woman to travel, even in such safe lands as Gondor. And what business brings you so far from home?" Boromir inquired politely, only trying to make conversation.

The lady's look seemed to indicate whatever business she had was not gladdening to her. "I have been summoned to take counsel with my father," she said simply, though she seemed to hide something as she did so. "He is in the Steward's employ, and desires words with me that letters cannot well convey."

Boromir nodded, wondering inwardly about his own father's orders, which said so much and yet still conveyed so little. Why choose now to make his son marry and give him another generation of heirs? Oh, Denethor's words about age and youth were fine for some, but he had certainly heard tell of something that had suddenly sparked this desire. Hidden meanings and games of words were all very well for political minds, but Boromir was a soldier, fond of those matters solid and simple. Yet what councilor of his father's had a daughter lately in Anfalas? He could think of no such woman. But there were social matters that escaped his limited purview when he was at home. She could indeed be one of those that slipped through the cracks.

They passed into the first level after some time in silence, and continued up the Citadel with only such pleasantries as short acquaintance and little introduction allow; He told her he was a captain in the Out-Companies home on a leave, not entirely a lie but not the truth entire either, and she did not question his rank, even when every door-ward in the city bowed and gave him entrance without hesitation. When they reached the sixth level, where the more noble-born mansions and townhomes began to press themselves against Mount Mindollin, Boromir ordered the gate opened and ordered the doorwardens to let her guard pass through, pausing to have a few more words with the lady's guard before he and Faramir left to go their own way to the Stables and the Tower Guardroom.

"Why do your eyes linger here?" Faramir asked over his brother's shoulder as he watched the young woman go on her way up the sixth level. As she left, she turned back, and her hood slipped, finally giving Boromir a good glimpse of her face. She smiled nervously as their eyes met, and then she spurred her horse on, around the corner and out of sight.

"They like what they see, and are glad in it," Boromir answered, still gazing after the noblewoman's company as they disappeared into the press of the crowd, not so very pressing here as in the lower levels of the city. "She had a way of consolation about her." It had been, he remarked to himself, a pretty face. Nothing of a great beauty, but still fair. And her manner had been fair as well.

Faramir laughed. "Oh, she is not for you, Boromir! She was too sweet," the younger brother pronounced pointedly. "And, I might add, you are somewhat spoken for."

"And cannot I not desire sweetness in these dark days?" Boromir asked, a little stung that his brother would suggest any woman out of the reach of the Captain-Heir.

"Ever you have desired fire in your womenfolk, brother. I doubt you would be satisfied with such a maid as her. She comes from a place where there is little need for ruthlessness, and even you yourself have often said that for women strong of heart and beautiful of face a man has only to look in the City."

"Perhaps in my old age I desire something different," the Captain-Heir proposed airily, spurring his mount back around the circle to the Guardroom after his brother.

"And perhaps the stars will wheel in the heavens and the little fisher-maid from the Langstrand will vanquish the Enemy for us with her country charm," came Faramir's teasing reply from somewhere up ahead.

* * *

Rhoswen could not help but glance back at the captain who had lead them up the steps as they turned around the corner and entered the High Street, the leader of her outriders asking at the gatehouse for the house where Lord Golasgil was staying.

"I thought him very courteous," She said to Maireth, though the older woman had not asked for her opinion of the captain who had guided them here. "Still I think they are mannerly in the Tower of Guard."

"And I thought he was a bit too free with his eyes," Maireth said with a disapproving scowl. "Rascal. Don't have proper respect for a lady here if just any captain of any Out-Company can keep his eyes on a woman of breeding," she opined, adjusting her seat on her horse with the distinct air of a mother hen ruffling her feathers back into place. Rhoswen smiled fondly at her servant's indignation on her behalf and glanced up at the townhouses of this street, stretching into second and third levels, some of them with parti-colored glass in the windows, throwing shards of red, blue and purple light onto the white stone of the houses across from them.

"My lady, we have found the place," the leader of her guards, a man named Carandir, said, taking her down the street to a very modest dwelling, far away from the gate but closer to that part of the mountainside that jutted into the city like a ship's prow, steering the Tower of Guard ever onward into dark waters. Rhoswen was helped off her horse and quickly shepherded inside the house by Maireth, who, now that they had reached their intended destination, was now intent on fussing over her mistress's appearance, as if her future husband might see her any minute now in such a state of travel-worn disarray. "You'll change your clothes first before you see your father," the serving woman declared, but Rhoswen shook her head.

"I have traveled two weeks to see my father. My business is with him first, and none other, Maireth," she stated evenly.

Lord Golasgil was waiting in the house's sitting room on the second floor, a chamber with a large plain window of clear glass, overlooking the city below and the plains of Pelannor beyond. He turned away from the view when his daughter called his name from the entryway, and immediately his face changed expression from a kind of melancholy to joy. "My dearest daughter, you are here at last!" the Lord of Anfalas cried.

"Your only daughter, papa," Rhoswen reminded fondly, embracing her father warmly. Did it seem that he had lost some of his old strength, or was her mind simply clouded from the journey? But when she pulled away to study his face, it seemed that there, too, was a little more age shown and a little more care.

"But my dearest one, nonetheless. And am I not obligated to call your brothers' wives 'daughter,' too? Come, sit, sit! You must be tired. I did not expect you in only two weeks."

Rhoswen sat down, sinking into the plush cushion on her chair and allowing herself an inward sigh of relief. Two weeks on a horse's back was all very well for a quicker journey, but comfortable it most certainly was not. "We made good time, but our baggage is some two days behind us, or so Carandir says. Horses and riders may travel light over Gondor's roads, but carts are a different story, apparently." She fixed her father's gaze and added "And carts heavily laden with unneeded chests are the slowest of all."

Golasgil laughed and waved a hand, as if such things meant nothing to him. "I could not have my daughter looking like a pauper in front of her husband. Rhoswen must have a dowry, I said to myself, and a dowry you have."

"But papa, can we_ afford_ it?" Rhoswen asked, ever the practical one. Golasgil ignored her comment with another waved hand, though she had seen something a little bit like concern flicker through his face.

"Leave worrying about those matters to me, Rhoswen. We will show him and his father we are not so small as he supposes." The Lord rose from his chair, striding to the window again, his face troubled again as he looked out over the city. "So vast indeed. It would take a mighty man to rule all this, and rule it well," he said, though his daughter could not see whether it was for his own benefit or hers that he said it. "Do you know who rules here, Rhoswen?"

"Denethor, the son of Ecthelion, the Steward of the King," Rhoswen said, wondering why her father would ask so simple a question.

"And his family? What do you know of them?" her father asked, still gazing out the window.

Rhoswen's education on Gondor's ruling families had been somewhat brief, politics not being thought a fitting subject for a young woman's mind. "I know he married a woman of Dol Amroth, Finduilas, and I know she bore him two sons before she died. Boromir and Faramir – they are both captains of the city."

"Have your brothers told you of them?" Golasgil asked.

The questions were taxing Rhoswen's reserves of memory, and she struggled to cast about for even a shard of information. "Carnil said both were proud, like their father, and Erun … Father, what has any of this to do with me?" she said finally, weary of these questions and sincerely wondering why he should be asking them.

Near the window, Golasgil hung his head. "Forgive me, daughter. I have done a grave deed."

"What deed is so grave that you must ask forgiveness?" Her father gave no answer, and instead looked away, as if he was afraid to look at his child. "Father? What deed?" Rhoswen repeated, her heart sinking like a stone.

When her father spoke again, it was with a great sadness in his voice. "When I first laid plans to come to the city, I remembered it only as I had known it in my youth – a grim place, perhaps, beset by the realities of constant war, but not a place where shadow yet held sway. When I returned, I found things not as I had left them all those years ago, and when I was presented with a proposition – regarding you, my Rhoswen – I found I had no choice, and could not turn away the hand that offered this thing to me. And now I have bound you in the path of the shadow."

Rhoswen said nothing, wondering only what her father's next words would be. When Golasgil spoke again, his voice was sad. "Daughter, you marry the Steward's son. The Lord Boromir." The name hung in the air, and Rhoswen found she could not speak, could not even move. "I thought it would be an honor to our house, to you, my darling girl, my only jewel!" Her father plead. "The Steward spoke so well, and said such promises as I could not refuse! But seeing this –"he swept his hand to the window, pointing out across the plain to where the Mountains of Mordor sat in gloomy watch, surrounded by their night-black clouds. "Seeing this I fear I have led you astray."

Rhoswen closed her eyes, thinking of the city she had just passed through and the many hundreds – thousands! – of lives she would be responsible for as the wife of the Steward. His to shepherd in times of peace and lead in times of war, and hers to advocate for always. And the Captain Heir, the son of the Steward, Lord Boromir, was to be her husband. Her brothers _had _spoken of him when they had returned from their duty in the city, an obligation for all noble-born sons of Gondor so that they might learn to lead in times of great distress, and she struggled again now to remember all that they had said.

Proud, they called him, proud but just. A man who cared more for his troops than any other, a true warrior, the man that many said would finally push back the Enemy. Valorous, princely too…but never once had they made mention of the way he had with women. Was he courteous, respectful? Or merely disregarding of them, a man of distance who ignored them till he had…needs? Rhoswen trembled a little at the thought. The image growing in her mind was not a good one – a tall Númenorean, dark haired and dark eyed, swift of glance, most of his face hidden in shadow, standing imperiously beside a throne.

She swallowed, opening her eyes and sitting up a little straighter, looking at her father with a look that summoned all the strength she could muster. "I will trust your judgment in this, Father, and you will not have led me astray. I will be strong, and I will not fail you, or our house." _We come from the sea, and know the strength of a wave, and we yet endure. Let them not think us weak who do not dwell in the sight of shadow._

Her father seemed comforted by this news, leaving his pacing by the window to turn towards the stairs, stroking his daughter's cheek and smiling a little. "If any girl was made for strength, Rhoswen, I think it was you," he said, giving a faded smile and descending the stairs to the rest of the house. Rhoswen watched him go, startled when Maireth emerged from a hidden little alcove – a servant's entrance, probably leading to their quarters in the back of the house.

"The lord Boromir," she repeated, watching her mistress. "Now there is a high-born lord for you. I remember when you were but eleven or twelve and your brother Erun came home from his training in the city. Such tales he told you, and his captain was in all of them. You loved him then, though you did not know his face," she reminded.

"I loved a dream of knights and dragons, Maireth, but that was childhood, and I put it behind me when my duty was explained to me in womanhood. I did not much care who I married until this morning, and now it is too late for going back." The captain who had lead them up the City this morning remained in her mind, his smile kindly and his eyes – his eyes were a wonderful color she could not describe except to say that they were like the sea she missed so very, very much.

Maireth frowned at her mistress' rapt expression breaking into the daydream with, "What, that captain? He had a roguish look. Think not on him, lady."

"I found him handsome, rogue or no. I daresay he took a little bit of my heart with him when he went," The younger woman admitted, a small smile springing to her lips. _Can I not desire after what I know I cannot have? Just to have that is some light-heartedness in this dark and serious place._

"Then let us hope it was the silly, girlish portion and have done with it!" Maireth exclaimed, realistic to the end. "Girls are given such pieces for times and tides like these. Let your husband have the true measure of your love, and leave such fancies where they belong." She turned her hawkish gaze to the hidden passage from whence she had come, now gently being nudged open by another maid, obviously one of the house who had been given a stern talking to by Maireth on arrival. "Yes, what is it?" The older woman snapped.

"The Lord Golasgil bids me tell you, Lady, that you required by the Steward, who has heard of your arrival and sent a page of his own household to attend you," the maid relayed, bobbing her head and going back the way she had come.

Rhoswen turned to Maireth, astounded. "How could he know such a thing? I have not been here a day yet!"

"He would be a poor Steward indeed if he did not know the comings and goings of his own city," Maireth said obviously. "And now, my lady, you shall change your gown. Your father may receive you in traveling clothes, but lords of the realm cannot."

* * *

If the view from the townhouse's window had frightened her father, the vast, expansive view from the seventh level and the courtyard outside the King's Hall was enough to make Rhoswen tremble underneath her ash-gray traveling cloak. Here there were no other houses to break the view, and no glass to hold back the harsh reality that lay hundreds of miles to the east in the black mountains, rising up beyond the white towers of Osgiliath. And towards the mountain and the King's Hall was no less impressive, only less grim, a white house with great pillars and a door so wide Rhoswen thought at least four men could walk abreast in it, and easily.

Before the door there stood a tree – dead, it seemed, growing out of the stone. The tree of the King, Rhoswen remembered, wondering what it might have looked like in full flower. Now it seemed as grim as the rest of the city – lingering, but fading too. _Have they no living, growing things here?_ The magnificent doors opened, and Golasgil beckoned his daughter inside, hiding his fears underneath his court robes as he lead the way into the King's Hall.

The air was very still in the great, grave chamber, as though the white marble that lined the floors and the jet-black columns that supported the roof would allow no sound to pierce the space that they enclosed. Between the columns figures stood, the gray and graven faces of the Kings of Old, each one looking down in silent, dead judgment on the figures that passed beneath their gaze. At the end of the hall an alabaster seat rose, a great crown suspended above it and a tree wrought in the stone of the wall behind. It was empty.

Yet beneath the throne another chair was set, jet black like the columns and just as fair in construction as its counterpart above. A man was sitting there, his robes rich but his face, now lost in thought, every bit as cold and grave as the room in which he sat. Golasgil approached, and the sound of his footsteps made the man look up. He might have once in his youth been handsome, Rhoswen thought, but age and a life filled with cares innumerable had long ago robbed his countenance of beauty. It seemed as stony as the statues watching the hall, but it brightened a little as his eyes fell on Rhoswen, several steps behind her father, and he stood to greet them, a little bit of his gravitas falling away as he did so.

"So, my Lord Golasgil, you come bringing your daughter, as I have asked," he said, and she knew, now, that this was the Steward, the Lord Denethor about whom she knew little. "That is good. Delay is the device of Sauron, as we say in the City."

"We have like sayings in Anfalas, my lord," Golasgil said, bowing appropriately and then standing aside so his daughter could approach. She did so, carefully measuring her steps and making the deepest curtsey she could manage.

"And this is Rhoswen of Anfalas," Denethor said, surveying the young woman with a pleased eye. Rhoswen suddenly felt as though she were under inspection, perhaps a piece of art the buyer was looking over for defects. Evidently he was pleased with what he saw – a smile broke out on his features, and he took Rhoswen's hand to pat it in a fatherly sort of fashion. "You are more radiant than your father had the power to describe," He assured her, and she blushed a little, her hand cold between both of his. "I hope your journey here was not unpleasant."

"It could not be unpleasant with such a destination as this," Rhoswen offered, causing the elderly Steward to laugh, letting go his hold on her.

"And she is generous with her flattery, too, that will serve her well in the coming days. Boromir could not be here to welcome you, but I think we will leave that for the feast tomorrow night. My cooks have been these past four days been laying provisions, and it will be a magnificent party. All the better to celebrate you and my son."

"I thank you, my lord, that such care has been taken on my account."

"It will be a party of especial magnificence. We do not often have chances for celebration here in the White City. But the wedding of Boromir and Rhoswen…that will be one spoken of for many years yet," the steward said, a surety in his voice unmatched by anything Rhoswen had heard before. Something seemed to stop him, and he paused, musing. "Rhoswen…what manner of name is that?" He wondered aloud. "I think it is not Númenorean, or any kind of Elvish…"

"My mother picked it, and she reckoned it as "White Rose" though in the true Elvish, I am told, it is closer to Brown Maiden. I think it is in an older Mannish than the Men of Númenor ever spoke, though I am no scholar of tongues," Rhoswen explained, a little sheepish that she did not speak in absolutes.

"White Rose. It suits her, Golasgil. We care much for our titles here in the city," Denethor explained to Rhoswen. "When you christen your sons, much care will be given to the lineage of their names, and who has borne them before. My son," he added, smiling at Rhoswen, "has never cared much for roses, but I think this one shall sway his mind on the matter. Have you been shown the King's House, Lady Rhoswen?" he asked, again assuming that paternal air that seemed so out of place on him in comparison to her own father's kindly way.

"I was shown the city by a captain of your out-companies, a most mannerly and knightly soldier, but I have never seen this house, my lord," Rhoswen offered.

"Well, then, you must be shown! Send for the Lord Húrin!" Denethor said, setting a mallet to a little silver gong that stood at the chair's side and calling a servant to find and bring forth the Keeper of the Keys. "Or better, his daughter, Serawen. She could show our White Rose here what she is soon to be lady and mistress of! She knows the pass-ways and corridors well enough."

"Of course, my lord, she shall be summoned," the nearest servant said, stepping out into the corridor to send for the lady.

"I shall take my leave of you," Denethor announced, gathering his robes to leave the hall. "I have other matters of business to attend to with your father. But wait here, and Lady Serawen will come. Pray be welcome here in this house, Lady Rhoswen – it is soon to be yours." He chuckled a little and left the room with her father, several servants following in thier wake, leaving Rhoswen alone in the King's Hall to soak in the grandeur.

She had only to wait a few minutes before this Serawen appeared, but those minutes were anguish to Rhoswen, standing alone in the silence of the vast and mysterious hall. In her father's hall there were bright tapestries and the stone was not white and black, only a homely sort of gray, welcoming in its own familiar way. She could see now why her father had been afraid for her. She was not ready to command and master all of this.

_But I must! I must!_ She reassured herself silently._ I can do no service to Father but this one._

Rhoswen was a little taken aback when the Lord Húrin's daughter appeared, resplendent in a gown of green and gold, her sleeves tapering all the way to the floor. She curled her own fingers over a worn spot on her cuff, curtseying in greeting and meeting the other woman's eyes with caution.

"So you are the little maiden who is going to take away our Boromir," Serawen said, looking over Rhoswen as Denethor had done. "Much envy will be placed on you, I fear. Hopefully you will find yourself equal to the task of carrying it."

"Marriage is always a heavy burden," Rhoswen offered in reply. "I will do my best."

The other woman smirked and laughed a little. Rhoswen realized she hadn't quite answered the lady's comment and felt ashamed – her second conversation, and already inadequate. "Yes, I suppose you will. Well, come along."

Throughout their tour of the Steward's house Rhoswen was given the impression that she had become a little child again, a chore for the older and wiser Serawen to lead and instruct. Húrin's daughter treated everything with a contemptuous grace, dismissing anything that Rhoswen showed the least interest in as the most mundane of sights. It seemed to the young woman from Anfalas that Serawen seemed to be trying to impress her with snobbery, as though she were just some peasant fresh from the fields who needed to be shown what power and glory in Gondor could buy you. It was with thinly veiled annoyance that she showed Rhoswen the palace kitchens, ("But you will hardly need to come here, Lady, the wife of the Steward never bothers with such simple things as cooking," Serawen said) the storerooms and laundries, all hidden well out of sight from the main corridors.

"Well, I think you have been shown everything," Serawen said finally. "Do you think you can find your way back home from here? I have business of my own to attend to."

"Is there not a garden in this house, my lady?" Rhoswen inquired respectfully, not wishing to spend any more time with the proud Serawen but truly wondering if they had such things in this city made of stone. Serawen pursed her lips.

"Yes, I suppose there is, besides those near the Houses of Healing. It belonged to the Lady Finduilas, though I do not know that any gardener still goes there. It will be an overgrown and dusty place, certainly – She died some years ago."

"I should like to see it, nonetheless," Rhoswen said, and Serawen sighed, smiling unconvincingly and leading the way back into the more domestic parts of the house. The door was found, locked and barred, and Serawen sent a servant running for her father to open it. The Lord Húrin himself came, his leather pocket full of keys jingling impressively at his belt and a servant at his heels carrying a case of what might have been other tools.

"Well, daughter, and what is this?" he asked, his grizzled head and strongly lined face a strong contrast to his daughter's golden, near-perfect visage.

"The Lady Rhoswen desires to see the Lady Finduilas' garden. I told her it could not be done, and when we came, we found the door locked. She asked we see it nonetheless," Serawen said, smiling again in that impatient, feeble way again.

Her father, however, seemed to have other ideas. "And why should she not see it? If she is to be the Lady of the City, she should have some small part that is wholly hers. Let us see if we cannot find which key among my many will give you what you seek, Lady," He said kindly, rummaging in his purse and feeling for whichever piece fit the small lock on the old door. Finally his fingers came free, triumphantly holding one small, silver key, the end intricate with a lacework of flowers.

The servant with the case stepped forward and dabbled oil in the lock, allowing his master to turn the mechanism with ease. The lock clicked out, and Húrin swung the door wide, allowing the two women inside.

As Serawen had promised, the garden was unused– the bushes and flowers that had once been well loved and well-tended grew wild over the paths, and, as summer was ending soon, most of the flowers were past their bloom, the fallen petals of many years accumulating on the ground and in the beds, rotting. Rhoswen stepped carefully over the trailing brambles of a rosebush and surveyed the rest of the plot, looking out from the garden's wall to a wonderful view of the south, where the eye's reach could extend almost to the River Anduin's mouth on a clear day.

"Finduilas was a woman of the coast, and often desired to see the water," Húrin said, watching the young woman's gaze follow the river. "She spent many happy hours here, in thought, in work, and with her sons."

"I do not think the Lord Denethor would approve of his wife's relics being given away so freely," Serawen put in pertly. "It ignores her memory."

"Who are you to make the Lord Denethor's mind for him?" Húrin asked, turning on his daughter in what seemed to Rhoswen to be a rare moment of anger for the Keeper of the Keys. "She was a noble lady, while she lived, and would not wish for this to have been forgotten like it has been. We have not had enough joy in this house since she has died. Let the lady bring her own joy here, if she will." He turned back to Rhoswen, his face hopeful. "New flowers could be brought, Lady, if that is what you desire, and gardeners to help prepare it before the spring and the planting time come. I will discuss it with the Steward, if you wish."

"I would like that very much. But I think…I think I will ask him. Do not trouble yourself on my account."

Húrin bowed, ushering his daughter away so that Rhoswen was left alone to find her own way back to her father's townhouse – no difficult task now that she had been shown every hallway and passage in the King's House. _Or so Serawen thought,_ Rhoswen said to herself, frowning a little at the idea. Lord Húrin had left the little silver key in the lock, and Rhoswen closed up the door, locking it behind her and, finding nothing else to do, hid the key away in the little purse that hung from her belt. Why trouble the lord Steward about the garden now? Surely he had other things to think about. If she were quiet, and brought her own tools, and disturbed no one, surly no harm would come of it. And that would be something for her to do, in the meanwhile. There was no sewing left to do on her dowry and no brothers to mend for.

Rhoswen carefully picked her way back to the King's Hall, where one of her father's servingmen was waiting to escort her home, the lord himself having already left after concluding his business with the Steward, drawing up finalities on the wedding contracts. It was quite late in the day, and Rhoswen retired to her room, fixing the worn embroidery she had discovered on her cuff when she had been introduced to Serawen until the gong sounded for dinner.

"The feast tomorrow night will be a very formal affair, you understand," Golasgil was saying as the two of them sat down to dine. "It is a chance for the Steward to show off his wealth and his ability to marry his son to whomever he chooses. Your baggage should be arriving tomorrow, all circumstances permitting. Have you something formal to wear? I had forgotten to ask in my letter."

"It is a little late now, papa, I cannot make a dress in a single day," Rhoswen said, her father's well-meaning request making her smile. "Not even if I was the Spinner herself. But I have something I think will serve, if it is as grand a party as you say."

* * *

Holy fan-base, Batman! Eight reviews on one chapter! _Man, it's good to be back._

This chapter is one of the ones I had the most trouble with, because this concept of why a lady from Anfalas was chosen before a lady of the city was one I know I thought about in the original story and didn't quite have the guts to commit to paper. The 'impoverished house' defense smacks a little of Mary-Sues, but I wanted to incorporate how little choice her father had in the matter even when he saw it was a bad idea. In the original Golasgil was kind of a joke, and I tried to steer away from that in this version, making him more world-weary rather than foolish. Hopefully I've succeeded.


	3. Chapter 3

A Rose Among the Briars: Chapter Three

* * *

_This night I hold an old accustom'd feast,_

_Whereto I have invited many a guest,_

_Such as I love; and you, among the store,_

_One more, most welcome, makes my number more._

_At my poor house look to behold this night_

_Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light._

_-Capulet, Act One, Scene One, __Romeo and Juliet__, William Shakespeare_

_

* * *

  
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Boromir hadn't seen the Hall of Feasts lit this brightly or feel this cheery in many, many years, and he couldn't help but allow himself a few moments of childish wonder looking up at the high beams of the room, long ago painted a deep blue and speckled with a heaven's share of silver stars, reflecting the light from the torches and from the great fireplace set into one corner of the hall, the chimney disappearing up into the rock behind it.

"We used to play down here when it was empty," Faramir remembered from beside him, stepping up to survey the ceiling with his brother. "Such a dragon's cave it made then. It seems to have grown smaller in the meantime, though."

"Or you are only grown taller," Boromir quipped. "Did we ever rescue any maidens down here, do you remember?" He asked, trying to hide his anxiety about the events of the night to come. After all, what business did Boromir the Bold have being anxious?

Faramir, at least, got his meaning without much leading-on. "I think we were then at the age where girls were to be roundly ignored rather than rescued. And by the time you were old enough to care, you were a page running around the castle fetching and carrying and I was still in the Nursery waiting to join you. The dragon hunting rather thinned out after that," he remembered sadly, giving his brother a sad, reminiscent slip of a smile.

"And now we hunt real dragons," Boromir quipped, bringing a real smile to his brother's face. The expression lightened his own heart, too, a little bit – it seemed too seldom now that Faramir smiled of his own accord when they were at home. Their father's grimness dulled down everyone.

"Speaking of dragons, hark at the sampling near the doors," Faramir said, nodding over to the doors of the hall, now opening to admit the first guests, many of whom appeared to be ladies intent on professing their congratulations to the Captain Heir (and probably catching a glimpse, before anyone else did, of the lady soon to be claiming him.) "If you will excuse me, brother, I go to find some wine. I find my throat a little dry and my tongue a little tight for pleasant conversation," Faramir said, excusing himself and making a discreet beeline for the kitchens as the ladies swarmed around Boromir, once more the man of the hour.

Boromir hardly got a word in edgewise once surrounded by the ladies of the court, a chattering crowd who seemed to have perfected the art of asking questions they never waited to have answered. The High Warden forced himself to be pleasant, smiling and nodding while all the time searching the growing crowd for someone who might draw them away.

He didn't have to wait long for his diversion as a familiar voice greeted him, and the other ladies, recognizing the bearer, made their good-byes and went to join their families, still whispering amongst themselves.

"Lady Serawen," Boromir said, bowing, glad to be rid of the mob but not so glad of how he had been rid of it.

"My lord Boromir, you look like a prince," Serawen said, running a long-fingered hand over the arm of his rich brown velvet tunic and the nearly invisible tracery of leaves that some nameless seamstress's hands had spent hours picking out in golden thread. "Indeed, you may be too princely for her," the lady said in an offhand fashion.

"Her?" Boromir asked, weary of these mind-games and leading questions everyone in his life seemed intent on dishing out.

"Oh, I have met your intended already," Serawen said, sounded pleased with herself. " A country girl, really, hardly worth all this attention," she added, glancing around the hall at the many nobles now assembling at the tables. "And plain, too, though she is taller than I would have thought. They do not have Númenorean blood in her province as strong as it is here, and their people are not always of a great height."

"There is a surety in plainness, it is said, and unornamented chests can hide great treasures," Boromir said, trying to keep his frustration at this whole situation out of his voice. Serawen laughed and tossed her hair a little, showing off the golden filet that held it back. It was, Boromir noticed after a few moments, shaped a little too much like a crown for his comfort.

"Such sayings are only invented by those who will profit by them," she said dismissively. "Do they not also say that scarce gold never sealed treaties?" In the mill of the crowd she could be as bold as if they were alone, and she leaned closer to him, her fingers stroking his surcoat. "Consider my proposition, my lord. I have no doubt it will be to your benefit to agree. You never loved but when you had a pretty face to gaze on, and well you know it."

Boromir pulled away from her without even the nicety of a farewell, making for the high table and his seat there, beside his father's chair. Faramir, on the other side, passed the wine ewer without comment at seeing his brother's irritated expression, and Boromir filled his cup generously and drained it before answering Faramir's questioning gaze.

"I have been trading words with your worm of worms, brother," he said, glancing at Serawen, taking her seat down the table from them. Faramir nodded and leaned closer to his brother's chair, the better to take counsel with him so no others could hear.

"I think she is grown bitter with news of her own marriage, though she could do worse than Hirluin of Pinnath Gelin. He is a good man, and handsome enough to match her in looks."

"She proposes to become my mistress," Boromir commented quietly – his brother's eyebrows rose, and he glanced at Serawen again over the rim of his goblet. "Since my intended, it seems, is plainer than Father makes her out to be."

"I think you should stay your hand until you've seen her," Faramir said finally, a mischief making smile on his face behind his goblet. "You may be surprised at her looks. Oh yes," he said in response to Boromir's quick expression of surprise. "I have seen her, though she did not know it. I think she will do _very_ well for you. In the meantime," he said, drawing the ewer closer and filling his brother's glass again, "We drink, and you wonder."

* * *

Rhoswen looked at the heavy wooden doors guarding the Hall of Feasts, her skin hot underneath her dress, nervous about so many things she did not have words for all of them. _Will he think me plain? Is my dress not smart enough? Will I slip and make a fool of myself? Will he be kind?_ And over and over again, the most terrible issue of all of them kept biting at her mind like a crazed snake. _Will he even like me?_

She smoothed her skirts one last time and shrugged her shoulders down towards the floor, trying in vain to relax, closing her eyes and taking one final breath.

"Are you ready, daughter?" Golasgil asked, smoothing out his own cuffs in agitation. It was, Rhoswen realized, the first time she had ever seen her father so openly nervous.

"Yes, father. Let us go," she said, taking his arm and standing up a little taller as the doors to the hall opened, two great wooden arms beckoning them on into the warm embrace of the Hall of Feasts and her first formal reception by the City as the wife-to-be of their Captain Heir. Every pair of eyes was fixed on father and daughter as they made their way to the table at the head of the hall, and Rhoswen tried to keep her eyes down, not wanting to look up and loose the thin string of concentration that kept her steps even.

Along the tables there were whispers, and Rhoswen glanced aside, only for a moment, to see if it was her that they were speaking of, her eyes darting to the nearest pair of eyes. And then she saw. Shades of blue and gray and black there were in plenty, somber colors for a somber city. And Rhoswen's dress was crimson, the deep claret color of old wine. Not a shocking color on the coast, where all colors were found, but here…Rhoswen flushed, ashamed that they would think her impure for wearing such a color. Her cheeks burned, her hot skin screaming "_I did not know!"_

But there was little more time for shame now – they were at the high table already, and chairs were being scraped back, their occupants rising and coming to greet them.

"Lord Denethor, I have brought my daughter forth, as I have promised, for the fulfillment of the contracts and oaths signed and sworn between us," Lord Golasgil announced after they had both bowed in acknowledgement. The hall was silent, waiting to receive the words he spoke even as Lord Denethor received them.

"And I have brought my son forth, as I have promised, for the making of a bond between our houses," Denethor said, his voice resonant in the hall, louder and stronger than Golasgil's had been. A voice used to making commands, and having them heard, Rhoswen mused. She dared not raise her eyes higher than they were, and so dwelt only on the black hem of the Lord Denethor's robes, sweeping the floor, and the boots of Lord Boromir; probably his party shoes, seeing how little wear there was on them. Soft, supple leather, disappearing beneath a tunic of deep woodsy brown edged in golden stags. He offered his hands to her, and she took them, surprised to find them gloved.

She clasped her hands around his, kissing his gloved hands in a sign of respect, and finally looked up into her betrothed's face.

The lady's face lingered somewhere between surprise and swoon, and it seemed all that she could do to murmur her "My lord" in utter astonishment, her cheeks blushing from some other embarrassment or this, the Captain-Heir could not tell. Boromir couldn't help but smile a little – where had the strong young lady from the other morning gone? When the great doors opened and _she_ was there, eyes down-cast, dark hair filleted back, something in his heart had made him smile to think that in a few moments he would surprise her as the man she was going to marry. He helped her to her feet, kissing her cheek in the accepted fashion and whispering in her ear as he did so, "Close your mouth, you are gaping."

Rhoswen did as she was told, still too stunned to think for herself. _Was that displeasure in his voice?_ She moved as if she were in a dream, barely letting herself think as she sat down at the high table, with Boromir at her right hand, sharing the glory of the place of honor near the center, and her father at her left. She was too frightened, too overwhelmed to think clearly. She did not see he smiled.

The first remove of the feast was brought in, and though Rhoswen was present in body, her mind was far, far away. She said little and ate less, tasting nothing of the food that touched her tongue. The impolitic choice in the dress had only been a taste of the night's disasters. An hour ago the man who sat beside her had been two persons, one a duty and the other a desire. Now Boromir was both, the unknown intended and the heroically-imagined captain, and sadly enough for her, desire did not seem to cancel duty out, but only serve to make it seem more terrible. Duty could be borne with desire's help, the day's cares exchanged at night for dreams. But love and duty intertwined? If he did not love her back, her duty would be the greatest pain.

_But if he did love me back?_ Oh, it was too wonderful a proposition to even think on.

Boromir was speaking to her as the dishes for the second remove were brought in, and she turned a little towards him, listening. "And now that the rest of my father's guests are too busy with their dinner to take notice of us, I think we must have a talk. I take it you were not expecting me."

"You lied to me, my lord," Rhoswen said plainly, her voice nowhere near sounding as betrayed as she felt.

The Captain smiled ruefully. "I did not tell the entire truth – that is different. I told you I was a captain. I did not say which one. And the Captain Heir, though lofty, is a captain nonetheless."

"I see that now," she said, defeat in every syllable.

Boromir looked as though he might have wanted to say more, but he gave up the chase, and went back to his dinner. _Has one day in the city turned her blood to ice already?_ They spoke no more for the rest of the evening, and after the entremet had been served (a pastry dragon, painted coppery-green) and the wine had loosened the laughter in the hall, Rhoswen could take no more of the false happiness that had pervaded the room.

"Please, Papa, I am a little tired," Rhoswen said, and Golasgil rose from his chair, the solicitous father he always became when he felt he had done wrong and needed to repay it. Always more than his daughter needed, but always welcomed for tradition's sake. Boromir rose as well, escorting them to the stairs and up into the King's Hall, pausing at the doors to wait for his cloak to be brought so he could walk them home, a small gesture but a traditional one. One year of betrothal, counted from tonight, would pass before they could marry.

She took his arm to walk down to the sixth level, torchbearers going before them to light the road. The city beyond them was fairly silent, the gates closed for the night and most of the populace in bed.

Golasgil went inside the townhouse first, leaving his daughter and the Captain Heir on the doorstep to make their farewells alone, or at least as alone as a young woman and her betrothed can be with a houseful of curious servants looking on from upstairs windows.

Boromir spoke first, his voice very quiet in the already quiet street. "A good-night kiss, my lady? As a… token of good-will between us." He sounded strained, talking in this low tone, as if it hurt him not to shout, or at least command.

"If my lord wishes it," Rhoswen said, her voice flat with fatigue. Her eyes were downcast to the cobblestones, expecting a peck on the cheek. But his hand caught her chin, lifting her face up to look at him. His expression was hard to discern in the darkness, lifted only by a little light from upstairs windows, and she did nothing, only looking into his eyes until he brought his lips to hers. _Too close, too close, the soundering sea!_ Her mind cried out, and she closed her eyes, letting her skin see for her, see his beard and the rough skin of his hand and his lips on her own. She wanted to melt into him and free herself, but she could not – must not, a little practical part of her mind reminded warily. Suppose he should not wish for such a thing! _After all, you know full well he has not desired marriage before this, and he is near forty!_

Boromir pulled away, and Rhoswen found she could not look at him. "Good night, my lord," she said, retaining every shred of formality she could summon.

When he spoke, his own voice sounded tired as well. "Good night then, Lady. May you have … sweet sleep, and good dreams to guide it." The words, she felt, were not his own, and he left quickly, probably to save face. _They will be good dreams,_ she said to herself as she watched him walk back from her window, _and I will despise them nonetheless._

_

* * *

  
_

Boromir was in a foul mood when he returned to the King's house, practically ripping his cloak off and casting it onto a chest, sinking into his chair and running a hand through his hair. He would not return to the party now – there would be too many questions, too many favors offered now that the girl's face was known. _Girl…yes, she practically is a girl,_ Boromir considered. _And yet she knows something of a woman's guile, too, to turn away from me like that._

"You saw her home?" Faramir asked from the door that separated their two bedrooms, a childhood passage that now rarely saw use as the need to share comfort during thunderstorms and sneak away from tutors became less and less. Evidently he had forsaken the party, too.

"Yes," his older brother said testily, casting a glance around the room for an ewer of wine, ale – anything to wash the combined taste of high expectations and a cold dismissal out of his mouth.

"And you kissed her?" the younger ventured, taking another step into the room to try and gauge his brother's mood.

Yes," the elder growled, "And a colder kiss I have never received. Evidently she cares for this match as little as I do!"

"She is not some city girl, with a rendezvous behind every column and a lover in the back garden," Faramir reminded, attempting consolation and sounding patronizing instead. "You shall need to teach her something of kissing, I think."

"You did not see her, Fara," Boromir assured his brother. "She looked away as though she could not stand the sight of me." He looked up at his brother, who should have been looking appropriately sad or at the very least, understanding, but Faramir was studious, as if trying to discern something in his brother's face.

"Brother, do you love her?" he asked, smiling a little as he realized the answer before Boromir could even answer. _Yes – yes, I think you do, though you do not know it yet._

"I could not love a cold maid, whatever her beauty," Boromir said, realism filling his voice as he filled his glass and took a long drink. The pause made him reminiscent, though, and he smiled a little in spite of himself. "But the other day, when we showed her the city…the way she looked at it, with that joy! I loved her then for that. The creature I saw tonight was no joy filled thing." _Why did I not see that she might have been the one Father spoke of when she first came to the city? We might have been friends then._

"Give it time," Faramir said wisely. "Perhaps she will again find her joy. She may have lost it in the surprise of seeing you."

"Or her own dismay," the Captain-Heir added dismally. "She probably had younger swains in Anfalas."

_Griping about his age? She __has__ bewitched him._ Faramir sensed it was time for him to leave, and this he did, drawing the door shut behind him. "Younger, perhaps, but none so titled – or passionate, when it comes to those things he loves. And I know she will love you, brother, when she finds that behind your gravity," he whispered to the wood of the closed door, a near-silent prayer intended for the hope-deaf ears beyond.

* * *

This chapter is so contrived and I still think it's incredibly funny. Probably funny _because_ it's contrived, but that's comedy for you. So the dominoes have been set up and now you get to sit back and watch them fall as both of my characters completely misread each other for a little while. But I think it's much clearer that both of them have a feeling they like the other party and knowing that, as a reader, makes reading both sides' thoughts and feelings just that much more amusing, too.

The age difference between my two protagonists came up earlier in the original, but I wanted that to be a little bit more subtle in this one, an expected difference for her and for him something that will cause a little bit of discomfort in the beginning.

If you're familiar with the older version you know that all of what happened in these last three chapters came and went in chapter one of the first story – hopefully that's just a taste of how far my narrative pacing and ability to fill out a story has come. I also think it's interesting that in nearly 120 pages the original Rose has a little over 53 thousand words according to FF's counters. Briars, in comparison, has a few over 38 thousand in 72 pages of working draft so far.


	4. Chapter 4

A Rose Among the Briars: Chapter Four

* * *

_Break, break, break,_

_On thy cold gray stones, O sea!_

_And I would that my tongue could utter_

_The thoughts that arise in me._

_--__Break, Break, Break,__ Alfred Lord Tennyson_

_

* * *

  
_

_Too far, too far, the soundering sea,_

_Far off the waves are waking_

_And I awake to hear no sound_

_But that of my heart breaking_

Rhoswen turned away from the window at the sound of her name, breaking the continuous cycle the old poem had been making in her head since she had risen that morning. A Sailor's Lament for the Sea, it was called, but she could not share it with the women who accompanied her now – none of them had ever known the sea like she had.

"Have you an eagle's eyes, that you keep watch on the plain for the Lord Boromir's return?" one of the ladies, Faeldes, asked Rhoswen with merry eyes. Denethor had introduced her to the noble women of the city, and there were not many days now when she did not receive an invitation to attend at someone's house, or host her own party, in the large solar the Steward had given her for her own use. High up in the house, it received much light, and some twenty women could sit there in comfort. It had been built for a queen's use, to hold her retinue. _And I am no queen that now uses it, _Rhoswen often reminded herself.

"I look toward Anduin," Rhoswen admitted sheepishly. "I am a little homesick, and the water is a comfort to me."

"You have been homesick since you arrived here in the Steward's House and the Lord Denethor remitted you to our company!" Another one of the ladies, Caineth, remarked, glancing up from the blackwork she was stitching onto a tunic of her husband's. "And yet you never speak of this wondrous home you miss so much! Tell us of Anfalas, and the coast, Lady Rhoswen. We are starved here in the city for happier views of the world."

"And starved for happier views of menfolk," the youngest of them, Merethel, added mischievously. "My eldest sister remembers when your brothers were in service in the city, and she says she never saw finer knights. Take care to tell us of them, lady, while you tell us of your home!"

A few of the ladies laughed at Merethel, and some of the elder ones, like Caineth, frowned and continued on with their work, eyes downcast to the sewing at hand but ears wide open for the talk common to a full chamber.

"Speaking of a thing often lessens a need for it," Faeldes counseled quietly. "Perhaps telling us of home will lighten the load on your heart. And it will be good for us, too, to hear of a place where Mordor is not so close, or pressing."

Rhoswen took a breath, remembering and wondering where she could begin. "We have not so many people in Anfalas, or many great cities. There are the fisherfolk of the coast who have their own villages, but inland the ground is not good for farming, and the villages there are small. Sheep thrive well there, in the hill country, and some cattle. Now they would be bringing the herds home from the hill-pens for the winter, and there will be parties and feasts when the flocks return home safely. It will be loud and joyful in the herding villages – it is seldom noisy in the hill country in the summer, when the men are in the high pastures – and my father's men will counting the herds to calculate the tithes and taxes owed. Some will go to our castle at Mithgaear on the coast, and from there they will be loaded onto boats to sail up the Anduin to Minas Tirith."

"And what is happening in Mithgaear, Rhoswen?" Faeldes prompted – the room was soft as the ladies listened, some rapt in attention and others with minds fixed on other matters.

"My youngest brother Erun will be helping my father with the tithes, supervising the men and riding through the outvillages. Carnil will be at home with his wife, Baineth, who is expecting their second child. Erufalion and Lucan live far away, with their own wives. But they are preparing for the end of summer, too. In the castle they will be pulling the rugs and weavings out of their chests to clean them and hang them for the winter. The storerooms will be cleaned, to make room for the harvest and the winter stores. And there will be a feast, there, to celebrate the end of summer. My brothers will be there, and my father. How tall they will look, and fine. My brothers are all tall, with dark hair, like mine, except Carnil, who has reddish hair. My brothers would tease him, when they could run fast enough to get away! Such music we will hear, such songs! We sing the most joyful songs now, to tide us through winter."

"Is it cold?"Merethel asked, caught up in Rhoswen's dream more than some, hanging on her every word. She was forever dreaming, the other ladies said. She is young. Let her have her dreams of bold princes and happy endings, they said. She'll know soon enough the truth of things. _I had dreams like hers, once,_ Rhoswen remembered. _Now they have all gone to seed, and I live in the days I dreamed of._

"Near the sea it is cold, and windy, but not as cold as the hill-country. It is the sea that I miss the most. I could hear it every morning when I woke up, the waves outside my window and the gulls crying and the wind. It always smells of salt." Her voice tapered off, staring at a blank wall of the solar, the familiar rooms of Mithgaear unfolding in front of her eyes, populated by people she knew instead of all these strangers she was now surrounded with.

"Let me tell you a little of my home, Rhoswen," Faeldes began, pulling her chair closer so that she and Rhoswen could talk alone, the other ladies, seeing the end of the reminiscence, going back to their own conversations. "Here in the harvest time it smells of grain, and the grass being threshed, and the cold, strong smell of stones. When the time is right there will be a great festival, and the unmarried ladies will go down to the fields to help with the harvest. A symbolic help, nothing more – a single stroke with the sickle. Then there will be a great feast out of doors, and everyone, even the Lord Steward himself, shall sit and dine to rejoice in our good fortunes. If you have a young man you will walk out with him, and when the time for feasting comes you will carry him a cup of new wine, fresh from the vinters that grow their crop on the southern slopes of the mountains. Sometimes those of us with husbands in far-off postings have a little luck and they are allowed to come home on leave for a little while."

"Where is your husband, Faeldes?" Rhoswen asked. She had never thought about that before. She knew that many of the women who came to these gatherings were married, but their husbands were never spoken of. There were many things in the City that were never spoken of. Rhoswen was learning that all too well.

"In Ithilien, commanding under Lord Faramir."

"That is very far, I understand. You must miss him greatly."

"He is not so far in my heart," Faeldes said with a smile. "And I know he works for a mighty cause, and a just one. Keeping his people safe. There is no greater task in the whole of Gondor, for fisherfolk cannot cast their nets and herdsmen cannot mind their sheep if a shadow lies over them and darkness rules them. Love your motherland, Rhoswen, but do not pine for it overmuch – we have our own traditions here, and you will have to learn them," she said sternly, mincing no words to make her point. "Your husband's burden will be heavy, and you cannot help him carry it if your mind is far away in Anfalas."

The younger lady looked down, chastised. "You are right, and wise to tell me. I will make more of an effort from now on," Rhoswen promised. Faeldes took her hand and squeezed it, trying to comfort the younger woman.

"You are young, and I know it must frighten you, to marry so great a man. But he is only a man, as any other man, and not so hard to please."

Rhoswen nodded, and Faeldes smiled, moving her chair back to the other knot of women and leaving Rhoswen again in peace by the window, her eyes gazing south but her mind thinking east, to the White City on the Anduin and the Black Mountains beyond.

As was now their custom, Rhoswen and Denethor took dinner together, privately, as a family might. "My sons are gone, and I grow lonely without them," the Steward had said fondly, when the arrangement had been first proposed. "And it will be a chance for you to know me better, and know your responsibilities here." Rhoswen had dreaded spending more time with the Steward than she needed, but she had done as he had asked.

Her father had gone back to Anfalas two weeks ago, leaving her in the Steward's household. It was a most unorthodox understanding between the two men, and not common at all for betrothal, but Denethor had insisted distance and the responsibilities that surrounded the running of the White City and the Steward's household made it quite a reasonable array. "Are you certain you would not like me to stay longer?" Golasgil had asked, bidding his daughter farewell at the gate to the seventh circle.

"As a leaf departs the tree that bore it, so also a woman must leave her father's house and cleave to her husband, and together grow a new tree that will bear new leaves," Rhoswen had quoted, kissing her father's cheek. "I must leave sometime, Papa. Let it be now. I will be well-protected here, and safe. And I have Maireth, if I have no other company at all," she had reminded him.

But her father's parting was falling into distant memory, and Rhoswen was slowly getting used to this new arrangement in the Steward's household. Dinner was the one meal the Steward took with his children when they were home, and now it was the only meal he took with Rhoswen. She was becoming adept at guessing his moods, strange, change-filled things that they were; one day he might be filled with joy, and the next with melancholy. She knew some of his favorite foods, now, too, and if she could sense his attitude earlier in the day she was sure to alert the kitchens to have them prepare something he enjoyed. Denethor, she guessed, might have begun to see the change, and in time he might give her credit for it.

But Rhoswen was also learning that Ecthelion's son was very slow to congratulate or give praise, even if he was in the best of moods. And he was slower to admit change. That was why she was having so much trouble mustering up the courage to ask about her garden – or rather, Finduilas's garden.

Today he was in an exceptionally good state of mind, seeming rather cheery underneath his heavy black robes of state. Rhoswen had seen his conference with outriders from Osgiliath earlier, and told the kitchens to prepare salmon, a dish she had brought from home and one which Denethor had particularly taken to.

"My lord, I have been here some time, and I find I grow slothful without occupation," she said, after the Steward had begun digging into his salmon, the first bite bringing an even larger smile to his face. "Could some small task be found for me to carry out, something to fill my hours? It need not be important, only useful."

Denethor swallowed, dabbing at his mouth with a napkin."You and my oldest are alike in that regard – always wanting to be useful. What do you desire to do, Lady Rhoswen? What are your likes, your desires? What would please you to work with?"

"I have always loved … gardens, my lord," Rhoswen hinted, thinking again with a little guilt of the key to the Lady Finduilas' garden, still in her jewel box, hidden away. "If I could be given a patch of my own to work and prepare for spring, I would be most glad of it."

"We have few gardens in this city, but the White Rose shall not want for flowers, if she wishes them," Denethor assured her. "The Houses of Healing have plots in the city, and need hands to tend them. I will tell the Warden of your wishes, and he will direct your work there. Anything you need – tools, seed -- shall be given to you."

"Thank you, my lord," Rhoswen said, her heart a little lifted, still saddened that he had not given her the answer she had sought. _Silly girl,_ _did you really think he would give up his wife's garden on the whim of his daughter in law_? But now she could move on to other matters of state. "I saw that outriders came from Osgiliath today. Did they bring good news?"

Denethor launched into an account of the outrider's news, and Rhoswen nodded, and murmured in all the right places, a game she was also becoming good at playing, though she still did not understand all the names of the players yet. Her mind was not entirely with the Steward – a small part of it was in a garden high up in the King's House, a garden with a locked door and only one key.

* * *

A short update, but the story needed to end there for the moment. Updates may become very sporadic in the next three months, as I will be leaving the country to study in IRELAND with 28 of my friends from school. And that'll leave me very little time for writing anything but essays, I'm afraid. As it is, I wish you all the very best for the next three months and hope you all have fun doing whatever it is you're doing!


	5. Chapter 5

A Rose Among the Briars: Chapter Five

* * *

_From the sleepless thought's endeavor,_

_I would go where the children play._

_For a dreamer lives forever, _

_And a toiler dies in a day._

_--Cry of a Dreamer, John Boyle O'Reilly_

_

* * *

  
_

Rhoswen had been shown the gates to the Houses of Healing by Serawen on her first visit to the King's House, but after that she had had no occasion to return there, and the inside of the famed Houses was still a mystery to her. Today, however, she had an appointment with the Warden, arranged by Denethor, to discuss the possibility of her help there.

An older, dark-haired man met her inside the gates to the Houses, wearing the simple gray robes of the Healers but also a badge that marked him as their chief. "I am Arthion, the Warden of these houses," he said in greeting after making his bow. "The Steward made known you would be visiting today. But the nature of the Lord Denethor's request was vague. Am I to understand you desire occupation here, my lady?"

"If it can be contrived," Rhoswen amended. "I do not seek to be a bother to anyone."

"Have you any skill with wounds, that you seek to pass time with the healers? I must tell you now we are a busy folk, and have little time for instruction of the young," Arthion mentioned seriously.

"I have some skill with small wounds – fishhooks, scrapes, burns, cuts and bruises. Childish injuries, one might call them. But I know nothing of the repair of larger damages than those," Rhoswen admitted truthfully.

"Well, you shall see few fishhooks here, my lady." The Warden said with a laugh. "We are not a fishing folk here in Minas Tirith."

"Actually, my lord, I came not to be a healer, but a gardener. I made mention to the Steward of how I should like to help with a garden of some kind, and he directed me here, where I see you have gardens in plenty," Rhoswen said, gesturing to the expansive beds and plots that covered a great deal of ground outside the House's windows.

The Warden nodded, looking out into the flower beds, not so fresh now as they would be in high summer. "The sight of flowers and the smell of fresh air is calming to the sick, we have found. In the Tower we sometimes forget the feel of grass and the sound of leaves rustling."

There was a cry from inside the house, and something seemed to dawn on the Warden. He turned to look at Rhoswen and asked, "Have you any skill with children, my lady? Since, as you say, you are good with childish injuries."

"As much skill as any woman, my lord, and that unpracticed for a while," Rhoswen admitted, wondering what the Warden could be thinking about.

"We do not have many young people in the houses, and those that are here are seldom parents, or patient with the young. Sometimes we have need of a little help with one of our charges," the Warden explained. "Perhaps we might see now," he said, drawing her inside the buildings where a healer appeared to be trying to coerce a young boy in page's livery to allow her to clean out a wound on his hand. The boy had evidently been stung by the potion's touch already, and he would not give his hand back.

"But I don't want to! It hurts!"

The healer stood up, taking a deep breath and walking away towards the Warden. "That child is the most obstinate thing I have ever seen. I have other matters to attend to, my lord, and I have been with him a quarter of an hour already, trying to clean his hand," she said, looking to her chief for some sign that she could go; he dismissed her and let Rhoswen slip past, approaching the child with caution.

"Hello," Rhoswen said, looking at the boy for some sign that it was safe to sit down. "What's your name?"

"Bergil," the boy said suspiciously, wondering who this lady was that she was sitting down and talking to him.

"It is very nice to meet you, Bergil. My name is Rhoswen. What happened to your hand?" she asked, pointing to the hand cradled up against his chest by the other.

The young boy looked at her suspiciously, but as Rhoswen waited, he slowly became less obstinate. "We were in training, and I slipped, and fell, and cut it on a stone," Bergil said. "And my teacher sent me up here, because he did not have time to take care of it, and now they want to put nasty stuff on it and it hurts." He thrust his hand at her to show off a rather impressive cut in the fleshy part of his palm – not deep, but dirty from wherever he had fallen.

"Oh, I see," Rhoswen said, glancing at the wound. "Well, I must say, I am impressed that you made it all the way up here with a great big cut like this," she began, using that I'm-very-impressed-with-your-heroics tone that came naturally around small boys. "I am not sure my brothers could do it, and they are all very big strong men."

"Are they in the Tower Guard?" Bergil asked. "My father is in the Guard. Beregond, the son of Baranor," he said proudly, forgetting his wound for a moment.

"Well, no, but they were, once. Now they are at home, guarding my father's house by the sea. Once, they went out fishing, and my brother 'Failion cut himself with a fish-knife. The cut was not very deep, like yours, but he did not wash it, and when he arrived home, it had turned green and he was not allowed out for a week while it healed," Rhoswen said. Bergil's eyes went wide. "I do not think that would be very fun, do you?" she asked, studying Bergil's face. The boy shook his head, looking at his hand with a look that told Rhoswen he was imagining it turning some putrid shade of green. "How old are you, Bergil?" she asked, changing the subject before the idea of green hands took too much hold.

"Eight, but I will be nine soon," Bergil said, proud that he could own up to such a fantastic sum of years.

"Well, I think that eight years is old enough to be very brave and wait quietly while I clean this," Rhoswen said. "It will sting a little bit, but it will make it better faster. And when I am done, we will put a bandage on it and you will be able to show off to all your friends. And your hand will not turn green," she added.

"Will I be able to go back to training?" Bergil asked expectantly.

"Only if you promise not to fall again," Rhoswen ordered.

The little boy considered this. "Will…" Bergil leaned closer, as if he wanted to tell her a great secret. "Will you tell the other boys it was worse? If they come and ask," he added. Rhoswen smiled, and nodded, seeing the little boy's plan.

"Yes, I think we could do that. It will be our little secret. We could even make the bandage a little heavier, if you think that would help convince them."

Bergil's eyes lit up, and he nodded enthusiastically, closing his eyes and trying to remain perfectly still while Rhoswen sponged off the wound on his hand, carefully wrapping it in bandage and tying it off. "Now you must try to keep that clean," Rhoswen said, smiling a little at her own success.

"Thank you!" Bergil said, pleased as punch with his new war wound. He turned to leave, and then turned back. "Are you the lady Rhoswen that the Lord Boromir is supposed to marry?" He asked timidly. Rhoswen nodded. "I heard my papa and his friends talking about you," Bergil explained. "That's why I remembered your name. They did not know if you were a good lady or a bad one, and they hoped you were good, to des…deserve? To deserve the Captain Heir!" He said, happy that he had remembered the unfamiliar word. "And now I shall tell them that you are very, very good!" He declared proudly.

"Thank you, Bergil," Rhoswen said, not sure whether she should be flattered at the boy's good will or concerned that the men of the city needed proof of her constancy. "Now back to your lessons, and remember what I said about not falling," she added, watching the boy walk quickly out of the Houses, breaking into a run as soon as he had passed the doors.

"That was well done," Arthion said, impressed as he moved into the room. Rhoswen turned, having forgotten that he was there. "One would have thought he was your own son. I think you have made a friend in the city today," the Warden judged. "And you may stay among us, if that is your desire, to tend the gardens and the wounded."

"Might I be taught a little herblore, if there is time and a teacher for me?" Rhoswen asked. "I have a little of such knowledge, but not anything far beyond what I have just done," she said, gesturing to the potion on the bench where she had bandaged Bergil's hand.

"I think such a teacher could be found for that," Arthion said. "Ioreth, I think, would suit your purposes. She is very wise in such matters, and certainly loves to talk about them enough. I will show you the places where the tools are kept, and introduce you to herb-masters who tend the plots."

The houses were larger than Rhoswen had originally conceived, the storerooms and studies of the healers extending far into the mountain while the space outside, where sunlight could still be found, was reserved for patients. Rhoswen shuddered to think how many wounded soldiers could be housed here in times of war, though the houses now were fairly empty. The healer Ioreth, a woman of fifty years or more with a round, kind face and decidedly gray hair, was in one of the Houses' many storerooms, tying up an herb Rhoswen didn't recognize for drying.

"Ioreth," Arthion said, turning the woman's attention away from her herbs. "This is the Lady Rhoswen, who has come to help us here in the Houses. She desires to learn something of herbs, and I can spare no master to teach her."

"Have no fear, Warden, I will teach her," Ioreth said with a smile, bobbing a curtsey to Rhoswen in greeting. "There's help and there's hindrance, as they say, and I'm sure she'll be a bit of both for a while. Well, come here, my lady. You can help me with this for the time being," she said, moving farther into the room so Rhoswen could stand next to her at the wooden preparation table. Arthion nodded to her and took his leave, leaving Rhoswen alone with the older healer.

"I always said Denethor was a fool not to make his son marry," Ioreth said, her hands flying expertly around the bundle of leaves she was binding up as she talked. "But why he couldn't have done it sooner I've no idea. Mind you, there's herbs in plenty for a maid like you – balm for menstrual pains, evening primrose and chasteberry for when the time is right. Raspberry leaf to prevent miscarriage, and motherwort to make the baby come quicker when your labor pains have begun."

Rhoswen colored at the thought of needing most of the herbs Ioreth mentioned with such careless ease. "And what is this we are drying?" She asked, hoping to change the subject away from the matters of a marriage she hadn't even entered into yet.

"Wood Sorrel," came Ioreth's reply. "Best not to eat this when you're expecting. Does strange things to a child. These leaves can be used to calm a fever when soaked in water and given as tea. When it is not dried, the stems can be squeezed for juice, which will stop bleeding in the mouth if it is drunk. My mother used to eat the greens raw, but I always find I can't move after that, and it's very bitter besides." Ioreth tied off another bunch of the long, spearlike leaves and moved it over to her pile, pointing up to another bunch in the rafters, a tall plant with small, white flowers. "Now, what's that? Should be easy enough for you."

"Feverfew, I think. It looks a little different from the plant I knew in Anfalas," Rhoswen said. Ioreth nodded approvingly.

"The herb they call Sweet Feverfew grows closer to the sea, and the leaves are broader. And what is it used for?"

"To bring down a fever, or in a tincture to relieve stings and bites," Rhoswen said, thinking of the same plant in her garden near Mithgaear. Who would tend them now? Her brothers' wives had little use for herbs.

"And if they are cooked and put in honey they'll help a sore throat," Ioreth said. "And these?" she asked, pointing up to another bunch of leaves, sharply edged with points.

"Nettle?" Rhoswen guessed. "I know not the use, save that there are some that sting."

"That is purple nettle, which we use to staunch wounds when it is fresh and to help the kidney when it is dry. See the purple veining on the leaves? Yellow nettle, over there," Ioreth pointed to another bundle, "We grind the dry leaves for use when someone takes chill."

Thus the lesson continued, Ioreth asking to identify an herb (dried in bunches in this room, mostly leaves and stems) and Rhoswen trying to supply a use. When the tying and hanging was finished Ioreth lead her into another storeroom to take stock of dried flowers, opening each glass jar and allowing Rhoswen a strong smell of every herb on the shelves. Some made her head swim and others turn away in pain, the smell stinging her nose. "Soon you'll know every smell," Ioreth said. "Best to know them all, to check before giving it to a patient or putting it in a paste or potion."

It was early evening when Ioreth let her take her leave, sending Rhoswen on her way with a sachet of Lady's Mantle and willow and an aching head from smelling so many herbs. She did not remember everything the older healer had said that day, either, but there had been a few herbs that she knew she would add to her own garden when she planted in the spring.

_Not quite your own garden yet,_ a reasonable voice reminded silently. _And don't count flowers before they've bloomed, either._

_

* * *

  
_

I have seen Anfalas, and it looks like the Aran Islands. The rocks, the sea, the cattle, the fishing. I swear they're the same place. If you ever get a chance, GO! Dún Aengus is beautiful, even if it is a seven mile hike from Kilronan where our ferry put in and everyone tells you it's three. Actually, I think it's more beautiful when you hike up the hill you thought you wouldn't be able to see in time to make the hike back and then you team up with your professor to get a bus back to Kilronan so you don't have to hike back. Glorious, but damn, my feet hurt. Seven miles!

Ireland is wonderful. Considering I've just had three days of very uncharacteristic weather for Ireland (no clouds and sunshine everywhere) I might not be qualified to judge.

Anyway, I thought I'd be posting this now before I forget about it or I have no time.


	6. Chapter 6

A Rose Among the Briars: Chapter Six

* * *

_I really don't feel like doing my homework right now, and I'm kind of sickly, so you all get a new chapter. Cheers._

* * *

_What dost thou know?_

_Too well what love women to men may owe:  
__In faith, they are as true of heart as we.  
__My father had a daughter loved a man,  
__As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,  
__I should your lordship._

_And what's her history?_

_A blank, my lord. She never told her love._

_-Orsino and Viola, Act Two , Scene Four, __Twelfth Night__, William Shakespeare_

* * *

Ioreth tutored her for two more days before leaving to visit a sick relative in Lossarnach. She admonished her pupil before she left that Rhoswen should try to study every day that she was away, and Rhoswen was trying to comply as she turned to the other matter that had brought her to the houses of healing – the gardening.

In these last days of summer the garden work was more upkeep than anything else – pulling weeds, pruning back bushes and planting bulbs that would sleep in the ground over the winter months and then bloom in the spring. But it was work, and it kept her mind away from boredom while it kept her away from anyone who wanted to talk about weddings, babies, or Boromir.

"I was told I would find you here planting flowers. How shockingly predictable you are, Lady Rhoswen," a woman's voice said from behind her.

"Lady Serawen! I hope they are not bad tidings that bring you to this house," Rhoswen said, rising from her place in the flowerbeds and dusting off the knees of her rough, gray gardening smock, a little embarrassed that she was dressed like this in front of the ever-beautiful Serawen. Did dirt ever cling to anything she wore?

"Oh, no," Serawen said. "I came to see a sick friend, but he is getting better now. I have a gift for you," she said, holding up a little package wrapped in muslin. "Seeds of some kind, I think they are. I did not bother to read the labels." She thrust the package into Rhoswen's hands, as if she were glad to be rid of it, and Rhoswen unwrapped the muslin, drawing out a number of finely figured drawstring bags, each one filled with a different kind of seed.

"This is a most kind gift. Where did you come by them?" Rhoswen asked, studying the labels attached to the bags and recognizing several names.

"My betrothed sent them to me," Serawen said, sounding like she did not relish the idea that he should send her anything. "A gift to remind me of our obligation, I expect. But I have no skill with such things. I thought you might find use for them, before I let them rot in the bottom of a chest."

"I will do that," Rhoswen said, wondering who Serawen was engaged to that he would send her flower seeds.

"Have you…begun work on your other garden yet?" Serawen asked, now keenly interested. Rhoswen shook her head.

"Now is not the time for planting, and the Lord Denethor has not given me permission," she said, wiping her hands for the third time on her smock, her fingers still covered in dirt. She finally stopped trying to scrub the black crescents off her fingernails and merely tried to hide her fingers in the sachets.

"Oh, why should he?" Serawen said dismissively. "Make it a surprise for him, a token of your affection and a symbol of the fertility you will bring to his house! Reviving his wife's garden need not mean only one thing," she added slyly. "He will love it, when it is finished, and in bloom," Serawen added, sweetly persuasive.

"I suppose it would make a good present," Rhoswen offered aloud, still unsure of this plan and decidedly against the way Serawen had talked about fertility and blooms. She wasn't quite to the point where she wanted to think about that yet, and Ioreth's repeated efforts to bring the subject up in their conversations weren't helping her opinion either. "But I should ask someone. Perhaps my lord Boromir would know, the next time he is home…"

Serawen laughed. "Boromir? If there is one thing I know about the Captain-Heir, Lady, it is that he does not like his womenfolk underfoot. Troubling him with questions is the last way to win his favor. And I know," she said, leaning closer to Rhoswen's ear, and whispering smoothly, like a snake, "that you have _need_ of that favor at present."

Her words chilled Rhoswen to the core, and before she could turn to respond, Serawen had gone. Rhoswen had learned that she did not like to trust anything Serawen said, but for once, the White City's chief schemer seemed right. When Boromir was home he avoided her, did not even speak to her at dinner except for when his father glowered and cajoled him. Then his words became brittle, and short, nothing like the confident, smiling man who had first welcomed her to the city. And she did not press him, hoping that her ability to remain silent and not complain would win him over. Oh, when he was home, she wished to tell him of everything that had passed in his absence! But the words remained unsaid.

Yes, she had need of his favor. Desperate need, for herself and for the sake of whatever marriage they would make out of this mess. And the Captain Heir did always seem a little cheerier when his father was in good spirits. Tomorrow she would not come back to the Houses of Healing. Tomorrow, she would unlock the door again.

* * *

Nearly thirty-five years of disrepair had worked the grimmest kind of magic on the garden that had once belonged to the Lady Finduilas. The vines and creepers had choked the other plants and slowly crept up the stone walls until no white could be seen between their thick green leaves. The fountain that had originally bubbled up in the center of the little plot had long since ceased to run, and the inside of the bowl was stained with dead leaves and filled with dirty rainwater. Rhoswen had been ready for hard work, but not so hard as this – the rosebushes grew from the dirt in a brambly tangle, impossible to separate or break apart without a considerable amount of damage to her hands and, in a few cases when the branches sprang back, her face. _Maireth will wonder what I have been doing_, Rhoswen thought sadly as she looked at her hands, marked and scratched by the roses' warlike thorns. _I should have found a pair of gloves._

The shears that she had brought with her saw much use that morning, cutting back the wildly tumbled roses (which the Lady seemed to have loved greatly – there was little else in the garden) and some of the vines. The noontide meal was forgotten in the midst of the work, and as the sun rose higher Rhoswen forgot the world. There was only her, and the garden walls, and plants. Her knees were aching and her face was flushed, but she felt better than she had in weeks, being outside in the fresh air with no one to bother her and no obligations to consider.

A rumbling stomach was the only thing that reminded her to take a respite and eat the cold meat pie she'd saved from her breakfast that morning. Far above the city the noise lessened, and the only sounds were the wind, and the faint voices of the Guards standing watch on the level above. The silence was refreshing, after weeks of chattering guests and Ioreth and someone around every turn wanting to give her advice or wish her well. _You shall have to grow used to the constant press of people_, a little rational voice said. _The Steward's wife has little time to be alone. Even with her husband. She will have share herself and her marriage with the whole city._

_Perhaps that is why Boromir never married, _Rhoswen wondered_. Because he wished to keep himself to himself. A bachelor's bed is no one's but his own, but a married prince's belongs to the whole city. If only it were so for women. Her bed is never her own._

Rhoswen bit back her last thought, admonishing herself for thinking something so crass. But it was true, however vulgar. Someone was shouting in the corridor, and she turned towards the door, recognizing Denethor's deep-timbred bellow and his son's closely matched shout. Rhoswen was suddenly afraid. _Please, do not let him see the doo ajar as it is,_ she prayed, watching the portal and listening to the voices outside.

"This will not stand, Boromir! Such losses are unacceptable! Do you think troops grow on trees, and we are able to harvest them at will?"

"I cannot fulfill all your commands, my lord, to be both here at home and a commander to my troops!" The Captain-Heir raged, his voice too loud to be anywhere but just outside the door. Rhoswen thought she saw a sleeve move in the gap in the door, and she held her breath, hoping the door would remain as it was.

"Is there no one in my household who still obeys me? Your mother would never have given such insolence!" Denethor shouted back. "She would have known my reasons!"

In the brief instant when Denethor pushed open the door with the hand he had evidently been pointing to it with as he brought up Finduilas, Rhoswen knew that she had done a grave thing indeed. The Steward's face colored even further, and his scowl deepened, his body nearly shaking with anger, forgetting one cause of displeasure for another, stronger one. Rhoswen stepped back, suddenly feeling very vulnerable, a small animal caught between the hunter and the cliff.

"Who gave you the key to this place? Who unlocked it? Speak! Did I not say no one was to disturb this?" The Steward roared, a dragon pushing Rhoswen further and further back into the garden with his rage, ready to devour her in anger. There were words, so many words she could say, but her lips were grasping and finding only empty air.

_Gods above, he will do her a harm if he continues on like this,_ Boromir realized. "Father!" he shouted, grasping his father's arm. "Father, stay a moment! Has she not done well, in thinking to bring the flowers back, as Mother had them?" he suggested, placing himself between his father and Rhoswen, blocking the woman from the Steward's view, seeking to distract him. "It was a sad and dusty place, and Mother never had it so. Think of how wonderful the roses will look in spring, when they bloom."

There was a great silence, and Rhoswen hesitated to breathe, to move even a hair least she disturb it. At the mention of Finduilas Denethor had changed, no longer a man grown larger in rage but rather one smaller, lost in memory, an almost childlike joy on his face. "Your mother had such wonderful roses," Denethor remembered, stroking a nearby bramble with his outstretched finger. "Such…wonderful roses…and now all dead!" he said, in the voice of a much older man whose memory has gone to seed, forgetting the time and place in which he stands.

"Rhoswen is very sorry she has angered you, Father," Boromir assured the older man. "She will do her best with the garden." Lies, all lies; he knew nothing about Rhoswen's intentions. But if it would placate him.

"Yes," said Denethor, still distracted. "Yes, she had better," he finished shortly, seemingly renewed in his control. He gathered up his robes and left without giving a second glance at Boromir or Rhoswen, who was still near the back wall of the garden, unsure what she should make of the Steward's outburst or her betrothed's actions.

The Captain Heir turned to look at the young woman, frowning. "That was very stupidly done," Boromir said shortly. "My father keeps my mother's memory very close, especially in those places where change can be resisted. Disturbing it will not have gained you any graces, especially today. Ask before you begin changing matters that are not your own."

"Forgive me, my lord, for offending you. I was told it would please you," Rhoswen said, her throat still dry.

"Please me?" Boromir repeated, stunned. _So, she speaks of her own accord!_ "It never pleases me when my father is angered and I am called to step in at the defense of those who have raised his wrath further than it should have been."

"I assure you, the sin was not intended and in future I will do as you say. I had need of some occupation of my own, and I… I was told you did not much care for women underfoot, so I went about it on my own terms, thinking to avoid disturbing you with questions," Rhoswen answered, a little boldly, Boromir thought, for a woman who had just been chastised so. Apparently her voice was not so lost as he had supposed.

"Who told you this?" He asked, his voice sharper than he intended. _This is the most we've ever spoken together at a single time,_ he realized offhandedly.

She paused rebelliously for a moment, considering her responses. "That is not important," Rhoswen said decidedly, her lips a thin white line.

Boromir cast his mind around, wondering who might have put such an idea (however true it was) into her head. He found only one name, and, realizing what had happened and why, laughed grimly. _Who else would persuade her into an enterprise that would break Father's faith in her?_ "Trust nothing else the Lady Serawen says, my Lady. She is no friend to you, whatever she may seem."

"I am not so provincial I did not already see that, my lord," Rhoswen said, stung. "But what she said of you made good sense, and… so I followed her advice."

"What was the logic in it?" Boromir asked, wondering what path had led her to her conclusion.

But Rhoswen looked as though she did not wish to explain it. Her mouth was closed, and she seemed to be struggling with her words. Boromir fixed his gaze on her, and eventually she broke, the words flooding out of her mouth as she turned quickly away, his eyes discomforting her. "Nearly a month I have been here, my lord, and in that time whenever your father has summoned you home you have avoided me as if I was your doom. I know that this marriage has been forced upon you and I know you do not relish giving your time to something so simple, and without reward or recognition. I thought your avoidance of me merely a preference, and so I sought to stay away. Though it hurt me to do it," She added in a quieter voice that perhaps had not been meant for Boromir's hearing.

"Have I hurt you?" He asked, intensely interested in her answer, all thoughts of his father's anger, expectations and commands forgotten. _Have I misread her signs?_

"I have only hurt myself," Rhoswen said bitterly. "The heart's hurts are no one's to claim but their owner's."

"Rhoswen, have you loved me?" Boromir asked, using her name before he could think to do otherwise. But this was not a time for 'my lady', he deemed. Her name caught her off guard, and she started a little to hear him say it.

"If it is love to…to wish for your company, to wish to walk at whiles with you in the mornings and share the course of the day with you in the evenings, I have loved. If it is love to watch you pass your time with others and wish you joy in it nonetheless, then I have loved. If it is love to have my heart sink as you ride away from the city, and leap up when you come returning again, then yes, I have loved, and love, and will continue loving," She entreated, her voice sounding hopeless and on the verge of tears. "Forgive me, my lord!" She added desperately, turning away to hide her face. "My tongue runs away with me."

Suddenly the whole sad mess became more clear to him, and Boromir wanted to laugh at the ridiculous nature of it all, but her tears turned him away from laughter. He caught her hand, and she turned towards him, frightened. "Forgive me, madam, for leading you on so," Boromir began gently, every note in his voice genuine. "Think not that I do not like you, or that it is my wish to remain away from you. Rather the opposite," Boromir said, smiling a little and wiping away a tear from her face. "I am a simple man, unaccustomed to remaining in the company of…civil people long," He explained, "and I am no courtier, having no tongue for fine words or generous compliments. I am not used to women's doings, save those of Serawen, and those should be handled like a burning brand – best held far away."

"You know I am no courtier, either, my lord," Rhoswen added, smiling a little and lifting Boromir's heart.

"It seems we both have things to learn about each other," the Captain-Heir admitted.

"Have you an hour to sit and talk…so that we might learn about each other, as you say?" she asked, her intention earnest and her face hopeful.

_Why not? Father will not require me till his temper has cooled._ "I find no pleasure in sitting idle, Lady, especially when those around me seem intent on industry," Boromir said plainly, looking down at the progress Rhoswen had made through the overgrowth.

"There is a pair of shears there, then, if you wish to help me with this rosebush," Rhoswen suggested, pointing to the basket near where she had been working before.

"Did you have a garden in Anfalas?" Boromir asked, picking up the shears and cutting at the branch that Rhoswen held out for him, tossing the woody stem aside into the pile she had already started. Silence did not seem to suit them.

"Yes. It was my mother's, though it did not go into disrepair as this one did. It was a way for me to learn who she was. My brothers did not remember the kind of things I wished to know," Rhoswen said, smiling at the memory and tugging at another stalk. _Her mother died, _Boromir remembered._ Someone mentioned something about that. The reason now escapes me._

"How many brothers do you have?" He asked, trying to remember now any knights from Anfalas in any of the companies over the years and coming up with no one.

"Four brothers, all much older," Rhoswen supplied. "So you see, I am accustomed to the company of fighting men," she added, looking up at him with another hopeful smile. "Carnil, Erufailon, Lucan and Erun, they are called."

"And all older, my lady? So you are the youngest," Boromir said, trying to place Rhoswen in a picture with four older brothers and failing.

"Yes. A burden unlooked for, a blessing unwanted, I think that is what they call last-born daughters. At least in the country. My youngest brother, Erun, is some six years my elder." Rhoswen blushed a little and looked away, and she said her next words as though they embarrassed her greatly. "I was…not anticipated. My mother was not young enough to take another birth easily – she died some months later from the strain."

_Ah, now we hear it._ "I lost my mother when I was a little older. And I had the company of a brother near to me in age to bear it with," Boromir surmised.

"You two look very much alike," Rhoswen observed. "Yet he is much…quieter than you. A man of words rather than war." She looked at him and hastily averted her gaze. "Forgive me if my words offend!"

"You apologize too much, my lady," Boromir countered. "It does not suit you when your mind is decided on something. I knew the compliment was truly meant. Yes, we are a little different. But it is no bad thing, to have a little balance. As there will between you and me, I expect," he ventured carefully.

"A balance, my lord?" she asked, looking up at him to explain further what he meant.

"A tutor once explained to me, when I was younger, and asked to know about such things, that man and woman are created to balance each other. One suffering, the other healing, one leading and one following. I shall be the beast of war and you the creature of peace."

"Whoever told you that you had no tongue for courteous speech wronged you greatly, my lord," Rhoswen said ruefully, smiling a little and then looking away again, back to the flowers.

"And I would not have you look away from me so often," Boromir added, setting the shears down and catching her shoulder so that he could turn her to face him. "Do I frighten you as well as please you?" He asked, a little laughter in his voice that he could not help.

"I frighten myself," Rhoswen supplied. "With boldness, I suppose."

"Oh, I love a bold woman," Boromir reassured her with a knowing grin. "I loved the bold maid who shouted down a sergeant of the Tower Guard in order to see her father, and the courage-filled woman who put me in my place though she tried not to. And the adventuress who wandered into a garden to do battle with it," he said, taking up her hands. Rhoswen winced for a brief moment, and Boromir turned her hands over, inspecting Rhoswen's hands and seeing the many little cuts the rosebriars had made in the skin of her palms and fingers. "You should have gloves," he announced. "Hands like yours should not be scarred so. What color would please you?" he asked, looking into her face and finding surprise there.

"Perhaps brown, my lord – something that would not show the dirt," she said, making Boromir smile at her practicality.

"I shall have some made for you," Boromir decided. "As a gift."

"A good-will token, my lord?" Rhoswen asked, smiling as one who has made something of a joke and means to see if the other will recognize it. "Or do you only give kisses for those?"

Boromir searched her face, smiling as he realized what she meant, what she was asking. "I think we could give a kiss as well," he said, catching both of her hands and leaning in to peck her on the cheek. For once she did not look away, and when Boromir smiled at this small accomplishment she smiled too. "See, that was not so hard," he said, and she gave a little laugh, shaking her head.

"No, my lord, it was not," Rhoswen admitted, sheepishly.

"Iavor, the Harvest Day, is soon approaching," Boromir said, remembering it only when he glanced at the pile of brambles behind Rhoswen, her harvest for the day. "It is custom for the Steward's household to attend, and for the unmarried women to walk out and help with the harvest."

"I have been told it is expected of me."

"Then I shall be sure to return home at the end of Ivanneth to be here for it," Boromir said, a little brighter than he was feeling at the present moment. But his brightness brought a smile to Rhoswen's face, and that brought him a little joy. He could continue it a while longer if it would calm her. "Come, let us go find some luncheon repast. Cold pies may be good enough for you, but I have not eaten since this morning and I am famished!"

* * *

_See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!_

_O, that I were a glove upon that hand,_

_That I might touch that cheek!_ --- _Romeo and Juliet, Act II scene II_

Every time I re-read this bit I think of that scene from Romeo and Juliet with the glove reference, so I thought I'd include it here. Two Shakespeare references in one chapter, geez. But Twelfth Night is one of my favorite Shakespeare works, so it gets its due too. Also, as an inside joke, the names I've chosen for Rhoswen's brothers (yes, they are a new addition to this story's plot) translate roughly to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. Allow me my little giggle, please.

Ireland continues to be amazing, although there is absolutely zero time for writing. Connemara **IS** Rohan, our tour guide said so when we went there and we all agreed. Apparently JRRT did some time as a lecturer at a University nearby and could very well have drawn some inspiration from the Irish landscape. If you'd like to see some pictures, you can visit my blog at thegalwayrover dot blogspot dot com


	7. Chapter 7

A Rose Among the Briars: Chapter Seven

* * *

_Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen  
To come forth, like the spring-time, fresh and green,  
And sweet as Flora. Take no care  
For jewels for your gown or hair :  
Fear not ; the leaves will strew  
Gems in abundance upon you :  
Besides, the childhood of the day has kept,  
Against you come, some orient pearls unwept ;  
Come and receive them while the light  
Hangs on the dew-locks of the night :  
And Titan on the eastern hill  
Retires himself, or else stands still  
Till you come forth. Wash, dress, be brief in praying :  
Few beads are best when once we go a-Maying._

_--Corinna's Going A-Maying, Robert Herrick_

* * *

The month of Ivanneth passed both slowly and quickly for Rhoswen, quick when she was in the Houses or in her own garden patch and slowly when she was asked to take dinner with the Steward. Dinners with Denethor now seemed to take an eternity, for no amount of careful meal planning or favorite foods or pleasant conversation could erase the black mark that her invasion of Finduilas' garden had set on her score with the Steward. She knew Boromir was trying his hardest with every chance he came by (she saw him trying at every visit home) to cajole his father out of his black mood against her and slowly, very, very slowly, the mountain of resentment was wearing down.

It was strange, Rhoswen thought, to resent someone one day and the next be able to love them entirely, but Boromir's frequent absences were making their dramatic reversal a little easier to bear. Their talk in the garden that afternoon had helped, and with every return home it was a chance to talk more and become used to each other's company. And she loved him even more for it.

Rain looked possible for Iavor and the Harvest Day festivities, but the clouds had graciously condescended to pass over the Pelennor without depositing any rain and the open-roofed wagons taking the noble ladies out to the Fields left on time at the leisurely hour of nine in the morning.

Evidently the other women did not think nine so leisurely an hour as Rhoswen did."Oh, the harvesters have been up since the dawn was bright enough to see by, finishing the last of the harvesting," one of the young women was saying. "Though I do not see why we should have to be up this early. Only one stroke, and then we may be in, out of this wretched sun."

_Clearly I was raised in a different place,_ Rhoswen said to herself, trying not to smile at the thought that nine was too early an hour. She looked around the wagon, seeing that the others, while they were wearing plain clothes, were not dressed for heavy work as she was. Her dress was rough homespun in a tawny color, the kind she always wore while gardening, easily cleaned and easily mended. But while the color was similar to what everyone else was wearing, her homespun stood out by a long mile against the more common shades of silk and taffeta. She glanced down at her work shoes and tried to hide their scuffled leather toes under her skirts. But she did not have to hide for long -- the women's attentions were quickly diverted by a troop of the city's young men riding past, lead by Boromir, a wide smile filling his face.

"You look like a peasant," Boromir cried from beside the wagon, laughing as Rhoswen rolled her eyes.

"Today I am one, my lord," she shouted back. There were whispers behind her, some of the girls having apparently just noticed what she was wearing, but Rhoswen did not care what they said anymore – Boromir's smile was enough to compensate for whatever they might think of her.

It was Boromir's turn to roll his eyes, smiling, and he shook his head. "Have joy in it, then, my lady, whatever you are today."

The riders pulled ahead of the wagon, overtaking them on the ride to the fields, and Rhoswen settled back into her seat, listening to the wind instead of the mindless gossip of the girls settled around her.

The field they were taken into had a large swath cut into it already, the figures of hunched over workers just visible against the tall golden grain. The ladies stumbled off the wagon, unused to such inelegant transport, trying to pick themselves up with as much dignity as they could muster while, Rhoswen noticed, still avoiding the help of the farmhands who were clearly in awe of their stylish, pretty visitors.

A group of the women who had been working in the fields were now grouped near the field's edge where the wheat had not been cut, waiting for their festival help to arrive. Rhoswen, who had been in the front of the wagon, was now at the back of the group, one of the last to leave their conveyance, and now watched the proceedings with a careful eye, taking everything in so that when her turn came she might be ready.

The other ladies were quick to take the proffered sickles, slicing inelegantly into the waiting wheat and carrying the awkward bundles away to the sheaves. But Rhoswen's eyes were not watching the noblewomen now, but the farmer's daughters who were standing, off to the side, whispering amongst themselves. Clearly they were as unimpressed by the efforts of the city's nobles as the nobles were with the amount of work it would take to make the wheat they had so carelessly gathered into edible bread.

When Rhoswen was handed her sickle, she turned to the girl who had given it and handed it back. "Show me again," she asked, watching as the girl smiled a little, confused by the lady's request, and gathered a handful of the grain, expertly slicing towards herself in an even plane. "So, it is like this," Rhoswen said, bending deep into the wheat, as the girl had done, and slicing towards herself with an imaginary tool.

"I think my lady has it," The girl said, handing back the blade.

"What is your name?" Rhoswen asked, taking the sickle and noting the keen edge on the blade. _Best not to bring that too close to the skin._

"Olnith, my lady," the girl said, a little intimidated that one of the great ladies should ask for her name.

"Then, Olnith, you shall watch me until I get it right," Rhoswen announced, bending over the grain and taking a bold handful with her left hand, swinging the heavy sickle into the grain and feeling the blade cut through the stalks, letting the bunch come off into her hand.

The sun rose, and as the trestle tables were prepared for the harvest feast Boromir was having a hard time finding his intended. She was not with the other ladies under a marquee avoiding the noonday sun, though Boromir had not really expected her to be there. Nor was she with the cooks preparing the feast, a possibility Faramir had suggested after the marquee had not yielded his brother's intended.

"Where is Rhoswen?" Boromir wondered aloud, holding a hand to his eyes to peer out over the fields. "The other ladies have come back long ago."

"Is Rhoswen the lady with the dark hair and the golden dress?" one of the farmers standing nearby asked. Boromir nodded, for a moment expecting to hear that something terrible had happened. "I think she's still out with the reapers, my lord!" the farmer said with a laugh.

Boromir frowned, and he strode out to the field, still holding his to shield his eyes from the sun as he searched the fields for Rhoswen's tawny brown dress and dark hair.

A figure stood up farther back in the field and waved to him, shouting something he could not hear. He walked quickly over the stubbled ground and the broken stems until he could hear her better as she cupped her hands over her lips and shouted. It was Rhoswen. "Come and join me, my lord! Show your people Boromir is as good with a sickle as he is with a sword!"

"A challenge, mischievous creature?" Boromir asked, shouting back and smiling at the sight of Rhoswen in the field, her skirt tucked into her girdle, revealing lithe white legs and elegantly leathershod feet. _This sunshine has made her bold again._ Someone had found a scarf to tie around her neck and shield it from the sun, and a kerchief was netted around her head, tying her long black hair back. Her dress was speckled with wayward stems and as he walked closer he thought he saw some in her hair, wild, once-growing spangles of gold against the black. Her smile was wide and joyful, and something in Boromir's heart leapt to see her so happy. _I do not think I have seen her smile like that since she has come here to the City,_ he thought to himself. _She is a creature for the open sky, certainly._

"Your lady has done well in her own way," The farmmaid nearest to her shouted. "She has been out nearly two hours!"

"And I have not done half of Olnith's work!" Rhoswen shouted. "But she has been very patient with me!"

"Come in and have something to drink! The day grows hot and you are not used to such work," Boromir said, pointing to a nearby tree where several hot farmhands, as well as several large pottery jugs, lay reposing in the shade.

"Not until you have tried your hand at this!" Rhoswen shouted back. The other girls in the field let up a cry of surprise, laughing amongst themselves at the thought of what Rhoswen was proposing. "Or do you not have talent for mere women's work?" she added, causing the girls to laugh even louder.

"Oh, now you will be answered, my sweet girl," Boromir said, stripping off his tunic and rolling the sleeves of his shirt to the elbows, striding out into the field where the girls were working and tossing the tunic in a pile near some discarded kerchiefs and a water jug. "Now show me how it is done," He said, looking at the one Rhoswen had called Olnith.

"My lady can show you herself, she's quite good now," the young peasant said, nodding to Rhoswen, who gave Boromir the sickle and showed him with her own body how to bend into the wheat and grasp it. "No, like this," she said, placing her hand on his back and bending him more. "Then move your arm," she said, covering his hand with her own and guiding it, "and cut."

It was the closest Boromir had ever been to Rhoswen, and the feeling was strange – her smaller body, hot with the morning's exertions, cushioned next to his own, her arm running down and joining with his, like a vine clinging to a larger tree branch, hoping to catch some of its fervor. He was no stranger to a woman's body, but the paid company of a courtesan did not have the same feeling of stability or …unintentional closeness. As she guided his hand down to make another cut, he realized that it was not a bad feeling, only a reassuring one – a feeling full of love, and hope. It was a naïve pose, he knew. And he wanted more of it.

"My lord, have you been listening?" Rhoswen asked, drawing him out of his reverie.

"My lady is distracting me," he said huskily, and, realizing what she was doing, she drew back as though she had been burned, causing a few of the other girls to laugh again.

"Now, that's a fine figure of a man, and no mistake," one of the other girls said as Rhoswen drew back to watch with the others.

"No shame in distracting him, Lady," Olnith whispered privately, obviously having heard the Captain-Heir's comment. "And there's distractions of one kind and distractions of another, if you follow me."

Rhoswen blushed, and Olnith laughed again, not sharing the source of her merriment with the other girls when they asked. After several swipes, Boromir found himself defeated. "Ladies, you have me," he announced, smiling through the sweat beading on his brow. "I beg you to be released."

"Oh, let him go and have the Lady take him his wine. She's earned it," one of the farmmaids said with a wide grin.

"Thank you for teaching me," Rhoswen said to Olnith, giving back the scarf the girl had lent to her to wind around her neck. "And at least you have had some laughter at my expense."

"Thank you for learning, my lady," Olnith said. "And we did not laugh at you – only at the others who mocked you and could not do it themselves."

"Have you a young man here?" Rhoswen asked, inelegantly wiping her brow with the back of her hand. Olnith nodded, smiling and pointing to the group of young men in the next field over, loading the high carts with the sheaves. At her pointed finger, one of the men stood up and waved his hat, blowing a kiss towards the two women, eliciting a giggle from Olnith. "Cuhon is his name," the farmer's daughter said, turning away so she would distract him no longer.

"Then let us go and draw off wine for both of them," she said, leading Olnith away from the field and back towards the tables. "It is nearly time for the noon-tide meal at any rate."

The wine had been brought from the mountainside vineyards of Lossarnach in casks that could have been drunk from by giants, each one having a cart to itself, drawn by a pair of heavily harnessed oxen. Olnith excused herself to go back to her own home for something, and Rhoswen lingered by the cart, waiting.

"Lady Rhoswen!" someone called, and she turned, seeing Faramir coming up behind her with a package in his arms.

"I take it my brother found you," the Captain of the Rangers said with a smile, picking a stem off of Rhoswen's head and casting it to the ground.

"Yes, he did," Rhoswen said, looking cross-eyed up at her hair to try and see if there were any more obvious stems she should cast off. "And I had some fun at his expense because of it, but I think he will survive it."

"I was bidden to give you this," Faramir said, holding out a carefully wrapped package for Rhoswen to take. "I think you will have need of it shortly."

Inside the package was a goblet, worked cunningly in silver and chased, around the bowl, with a relief of leaves. Rhoswen held the goblet up to the light to see that it was not just leaves circling the bowl, but also a delicate garland of roses, holding up a seal with two elvish letters on it. "What does it say?" Rhoswen asked, pointing the letters out to Faramir.

"This one is a B, and the other an R," Faramir explained, pointing them out to Rhoswen. "Before you thank me I should say that it is from my father, and not me," he admitted in the silence that followed while Rhoswen inspected the cup. "He is too proud to give it to you himself—I think he fears if you see you are forgiven in any small way you will not be so careful as you have been these past weeks. It is the custom for the goblet that the wine is served in here be used for the wedding feast. Such things are great heirlooms, and this one has been a task to the silversmiths for at least a month now."

"It is beautiful, Lord Faramir," Rhoswen said sincerely. "And I know I shall treasure it, whoever it is from."

"Fill it first, and treasure it afterwards," Faramir advised. "They will be looking for you soon at the tables!"

Rhoswen nodded, going to the vintners and holding the cup as it was filled from one of the wagon-held tuns, carefully bearing the cup to the high table set apart from the others where Denethor and his sons were seated, Faramir just slipping into his seat as the file of women processed in, each one bearing a cup of wine.

Boromir stood as she approached the table, and she handed him the cup silently, bowing a little as she did so. His face was bright with sweat, and his hands, too, were warm from his lesson in reaping. "Taken in blessing, and given as thanks," he said, pouring out some of the wine on the soil at his feet before he took a deep draught from the cup. He held it out to her and she took it haltingly, taking only a small sip before handing it back to him. It was not overly rich, being only a year in the cask, but it was strong and strange to Rhoswen's tongue, and she struggled not to make a face at the taste.

"Did you not enjoy it?" Boromir asked, taking the cup from her hands and setting it on the table between them. "Let me clean your lips," he whispered, leaning across the table to lightly touch her lips with his own. A raucous call went up from the other tables, and Rhoswen turned away from his kiss to look at the farmers and their families, hooting and cheering for their Captain-Heir's show.

When she looked back, she found his eyes were full of mischief. "Your lips are sweet. Shall you take another drink?" he asked, his voice low in his whisper and deep.

She leaned in and kissed him again, longer and harder this time, tasting every ounce of the wine on his lips. Behind her the calls grew louder.

"That was not what I meant, you wicked little creature," Boromir whispered when she pulled away, his face heavy with a pleased grin.

"Forgive –" Rhoswen began apologizing, her face coloring crimson underneath her sunburnt skin.

"Save me your apologies and give me your sin again," Boromir ordered, cutting her off. "And let us not have this table between us, either."

As she sat down, it seemed Boromir had started a new tradition – after drinking from their own cups, many of the young men were taking the opportunity to kiss their future brides, even with disapproving fathers and mothers looking on. Denethor was certainly among this number, though whether he was casting his disapproval on his son for kissing his betrothed in such a wanton manner or on Rhoswen for putting up with it none could tell. "Lady Rhoswen, you are brown as a Southron," he said disapprovingly as she sat down. "Your skin has burned terribly."

"I have a salve for that, my lord, it will not hurt so much in a few days," Rhoswen offered, losing a little bit of her merriment as Denethor frowned at her. "And it will soon fade, with the right care."

"I do not think it was wise of you to stay out so long. It is undignified," the Steward said severely.

"It was honest work," Rhoswen said, looking a little unsure of her own defense.

"See how the people love her now, Father?" Boromir asked. "She has gained their trust today. That is what all good rulers should have, you taught me that."

Denethor gave one last frown and said nothing more on the matter for the rest of the meal, a strong contrast to the rest of the party-goers, all of whom seemed to be enjoying themselves. When the meal was over the Steward and the rest of the court got up to leave; the farmers would be feasting and dancing far into the night, but genteel palates and tongues felt they had little place at such celebrations.

"Rhoswen, are you not coming home?" Boromir asked, keeping one eye on his father, mounting up to ride home to the city, and Rhoswen, still looking as though she wanted to converse more with her new friends the reapers from that morning.

Rhoswen left her seat to come and talk to him, glancing back at Olnith and the others. "I would rather stay a little while, and converse with Olnith and her family," she said. "Or would your father find it terribly improper?"

"Why do you wish to stay?" Boromir asked.

"Perhaps you will find something you can change when you become steward in your father's place," Rhoswen suggested. "Or perhaps it will only be a pleasant conversation passed with friends. You will show them you care for their troubles, at any rate, and a trusted sovereign is better than an untrusted one."

"You sound like you've been into Faramir's library," Boromir accused, secretly seeing that what she said made sense.

"You told me you liked my boldness, my lord," Rhoswen accused back, and Boromir sighed.

"You have me there, my lady. I will make our excuses to Father."

Denethor was not pleased by this, but he left his son to stay in the village, riding back with the train of carriages and wagons full of fat and full noble-borns waiting to get back to their golden plates and upholstered chairs.

"It is a sad day when even traditions cannot rouse smiles in Gondor," Boromir said ruefully, watching the wagons go. "Once we loved to remember the old days here. But now I think our present concerns outweigh honoring the old ones."

"In the old days they would have stayed out all night for the feasting," Faramir added. He had stayed behind, too, not wishing to be the only one riding back with his father. "And there would have been music, and dancing, and much more merriment. You will still find that here tonight among the common folk."

"Where are you off to, my lord Faramir?" Rhoswen asked as Faramir turned to leave them.

"I go to find songs, my lady," he said, bowing his head slightly. "We do not sing enough in the city any longer for my tastes. And night watches are long in Ithilien."

Rhoswen nodded, taking Boromir's hand and walking out to the edge of the grainfields where the fallow began, the grass short near the edge but rising as tall as a man as it went farther out. There was already a small crowd of young people, sitting out in the short grass with skins of ale and leftovers from the feast, exchanging jokes and laughing. The laughter quieted a little as Rhoswen and Boromir approached, and Olnith stood up, brushing off her skirt as if she were going to welcome them to her hall.

"May we join you?" Rhoswen asked, her hand close in Boromir's. The Captain-Heir felt old again – though Rhoswen was still of an age to be with these folk, he certainly was not. Nine and thirty years he had, and the eldest here was perhaps eight and twenty.

"Don't see how we could refuse," One of the young men said, his disapproving voice a stark change from the laughing, merry sounds Boromir and Rhoswen had heard on the way out.

"Rhoswen, this is Cuhon," Olnith said, twining her hand into his and smiling against his frowns, trying to break the silence. "Cuhon son of Culin."

"You are a lucky man, Cuhon son of Culin," Rhoswen offered, the silence making her uneasy. "Olnith is the best of women."

"Now, how come when you tell her that she smiles, and when I tell her she frowns?" Cuhon asked, glancing at his love suspiciously. Olnith looked mysteriously superior for a moment, keeping her reason silent.

"Probably 'cause when you say it you want something for it," one of the other men said ribaldly, making the rest of the company laugh and Rhoswen color, giggling nervously along with the rest. Her hand clenched Boromir's tighter, and he held it against his side, trying to say that he was there without the words. The laughter loosened everyone, and soon the skins were passed in their direction, a sign that they were now welcome.

"Festivities might be cut short this year," Cuhon was saying, wrapping his arm around Olnith as she sat back down and drawing her closer to him "Used to be we'd stay out all night, maybe sleep under the stars. You'd probably remember better than me, my lord. Not the time for that anymore."

"The shadow?" Boromir asked.

"Smaller things to worry about than that," the other young man said, sneering. "The outer wall, it's been in disrepair these past years, and getting worse. Wolves creepin' in now, and other foul sorts. Not safe to be out of your house after dark. If the steward cared a flea's ear for his people, he'd fix the wall 'stead of sendin' his troops elsewhere and studyin' up there in his tower." Cuhon fixed a blaming gaze on the son of the man he so openly scorned and dared him to say differently. He'd been drinking, Boromir knew that much; they'd all been drinking! But Boromir wasn't in the mood today for rising to petty slights, and he merely nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Repairing the wall would be a wise thing to do, both for the people and for the army," Boromir said evenly. "I will see if I can persuade the Steward to see that."

Cuhon nodded, still suspicious of Boromir, but he kept his objections to himself this time, and the talk moved to other topics. Finally one of the women rose up, smiling, and planted her hands on her hips. "I'm bored with sitting. Let's play a game!"

"We're too old for games, Elweth! Sit down and let Joren tickle you, if you've a mind for playing."

"Too old for Larking?" Elweth shot back, her smile saying that she knew the answer already.

"Never too old for Larking!" someone on the other side of the group exclaimed, rising up ready to play whatever this game was.

"What is...Larking?" Rhoswen asked Olnith as the group separated, the men to one side and the women to the other, one of the older girls directing the proceedings.

"It is a game we played as children – though the rules are different now we're older. The men are the Larks and we women the Leaves. If a lark catches a leaf, he is entitled to eat it -- or …take… something," Olnith explained.

"Take something?"

"Some Leaves give more than others, and some Larks take more from certain Leaves. Meleth will give anything to any Lark who asks," Olnith said, pointing to a vaguely pretty girl with heavy breasts and a conniving smile. Rhoswen remembered her from this morning, the one who had said Boromir was a fine figure of a man. "And some will ask a lot of her. Brin's got his eye on her for marriage, after the harvest is counted and the grain sold. Just like Cuhon has his eyes on me," she said proudly. "Though I don't know if she's eyeing him back."

"Do you have to give anything you don't want to give?"

"They won't ask anything terrible of you, my lady, they're too afraid of what the Captain will do. But it's a good time to try for a little tumble, since the fathers aren't watching too close," the peasant said, glancing at Cuhon with a thoughtful look. "Wouldn't mind it, either," she said pragmatically, turning away as Cuhon caught her eye. "Going to be married after the harvest is in anyway."

"Leaves away, the wind has brought thee!" someone cried.

"And now we **run**!" Olnith shrieked, taking off into the high grass that grew in the fallow land at the field's edge as another shout went up --"Larks fly free, no cages caught thee!"

It brought her back to her childhood, hiding in the high grass. Olnith had run in one direction, Rhoswen another, parting the grass and stumbling through, laughing as they ran. The man named Brin found her first, his face falling rapidly when he saw she was not Meleth. He took nothing, bounding back into the grass, but the next finder was a farmer Rhoswen didn't recognize, although he could have been Cuhon's brother. He smiled and said, without pause, "From you I'll take a kiss, Lady, and nothing less."

"Take your kiss then," Rhoswen said, the laughter and the ale she'd drunk from the skins making her bolder. His kisses were not like Boromir's, the beard on his face coarse and unkempt and his lips insistent, as if trying to take more than a kiss from her mouth. His hands were too heavy, and when he disappeared back into the grass, smirking, Rhoswen was glad to see him go. She ran into the tall grass looking over her shoulder, and fairly collided with a wall of flesh. She would have fallen to the ground had not the human mountain caught her, holding her up while she found her footing again. It was Boromir.

"If I catch you, can I keep you?" He asked, and Rhoswen laughed.

"I do not know, my lord," Rhoswen admitted, suddenly very conscious of his body near hers. His hands were hot and his face flushed with exertion and laughter.

"That Meleth is begging to be found. She's trampling around like a wild boar."

"And did you take something from her?" Rhoswen asked, flushing with jealousy for a moment when she thought of buxom Meleth in this field with her intended, her Boromir.

"A kiss. In the spirit of the game, and on the cheek. She seemed rather disappointed."

"What do you want from me, my lord?"

"I want to sit and stop this running around like a goose kissing other girls and kiss you, White Rose." His kiss washed the memory of the farmhand's kiss away, and her heart thrilled, _He loves me! He loves me! _It was a long kiss, slow and sweet. Her burnt skin cried out in pain as it touched his, but she didn't care – the pain would leave soon enough when it was over. The kiss deepened, and his hands tightened around her waist. Some tiny beacon of alarm went off in her head as she felt his hands, so close to her legs and her skirts and her woman's places. _Watch that he does not go too far!_ But then his grip slackened, and he pulled his head away. "Mmm… I've had too much wine," he said, smiling so that his eyes crinkled at their corners, half-open as they were. "Your kisses make me drowsy, White Rose."

"Why do you call me that? You and your father, you both call me White Rose. I had no such nickname in Anfalas."

"White Rose? I don't know. It suits you."

"It doesn't suit me today," Rhoswen said ruefully. "Today I'm a sunburnt Rose." She touched gingerly at the skin of her cheeks, rosy red in the sun and hot to the touch.

"But still my rose. Fairer than all these leaves fluttering about. " Boromir said, ducking down lower into the grass as another Leaf ran by, saying in a voice begging to be found, "I'm a leaf, fair and free!"

Rhoswen giggled. "Meleth?" she asked quietly. Boromir nodded silently, listening to Meleth go. "I forgot to ask Olnith how the game ends," she said remorsefully, listening to the sounds die away in the grass.

"Probably when all the leaves have been found by the larks that wanted to find them," Boromir said, lying back on the ground and gazing up at her in study. "How is it so easy for you?" he asked, resting back on one elbow to hear her answer and turning a blade of grass over in his fingers as he waited.

"How is what so easy?" Rhoswen asked, turning to look at him.

"This," Boromir said, gesturing to the fields and the laughter in the grass beyond. "Being…one of them. With Olnith and Cuhon you are so…free with yourself, while I find I can barely speak."

"I was raised in a smaller place," Rhoswen said, half of her voice explaining and the other half reflecting on the matter at hand. "I was not raised high enough to think such work below me, nor proud enough that I would refuse to do it. You say you are no courtier, and true enough sometimes– " Boromir playfully batted her arm for that, and Rhoswen snatched it away, giving her own playful swat in return, "But you have always been raised by a man who knows his place, and knows that it is far above other men. When my mother died, I was given to a nurse who thought I should play with more children my own age until eleven, when I was taken away and shown more of my duties as a lady. I struggle with your high-born ladies, but when among the farm-hands I am at home. They play no games with words, have no…agendas. I know them. Thiers is honest work."

"You play enough games of your own. And I do not think you could be dishonest in anything you did."

"I lie to your father," Rhoswen said. "Your father saw only a lady who would bear his son children. He did not see the simpleton beneath."

_See, she knows of Father's reasons, too."_Call yourself a simpleton again and I'll have to kiss you to make you stop," Boromir threatened, ready at any excuse to make good on his threat.

"Simple in other ways, I mean. Would I not be simple if the only thing I wished to do when you came home from Osgiliath is drag you to the kitchens and feed you while you tell me what has passed since we last spoke?"

Boromir shrugged, admitting she was right if only in part of her thinking. "What would you feed me?" He asked, half in genuine interest and half to make conversation.

"White bread and roast chicken and carrots in honey. Lemongrass soup and mincemeat pies and boiled apple pudding."

"And that's all?" Boromir asked with mock disgust. "I don't think I could love you if that was the whole meal."

"Men!" Rhoswen cried, looking up at the heavens with her own mocking displeasure. "Do you always think and judge with your stomachs?"

_Occasionally we think with other things below our stomachs_, Boromir said to himself, his blood stirring as his ears picked up other sounds in the grass than just the wind and the crickets. A ways off someone was giggling and struggling not to make their voice heard. There was a strange ringing in his head, as if someone were mumbling beside his ear, very, very softly. And it was getting darker, too – was a cloud rolling over the sun? He looked up. The clouds were a ways off. He heard himself speaking, but found he could not choose the words.

"The fields are wide. I do not think anyone would hear us here."

"My lord?"

"And a baby begot now would be born in…Lothron, perhaps, or by Midyear at latest. It would be inside the betrothal, and there are some who regard such things legitimate." Had he really been thinking that? Yes, he had, when Meleth kissed him and pressed her body into his, hitching her skirt up to her thighs, he had thought about it. And he had been sorely tempted.

"You do not know of what you speak…" Rhoswen warned, backing away from him, her skirt catching on a tangle of grass, revealing her calves and her small, beautiful ankles. An image suddenly filled his head, of heaving bodies and sweat-soaked skin. _Let it happen, let it consume you….she is a woman, and you are a man, and you have needs…_

"They would, for us! I know you have some wickedness in you, some boldness. Why not let it out, here? I know you have desired it," Boromir said, his heart beating faster, the desire growing in his breast, the need to conquer her, subdue her. Suddenly it all seemed so clear, so simple. The voice in his head was shouting for it, urging him on mercilessly, the words clear as daylight. _Come, it is your duty! They will never know. She has never known it, she might actually enjoy it...Remember this morning, when she pressed her body to yours?_

In a second's passing he had caught her, kissing her passionately, cruelly, almost. He could hear it, could hear it all now, the sighs and the screams and the shouting, and it fueled him. It should be his, by rights she should be his already!

She forced her face away from his, and he found her expression hard to discern. Had she not enjoyed it? But when he leaned in to take another kiss, he was met not with warm and yielding lips, but with a hard and resolute palm across his cheek.

"Was it not a good kiss, my lady? Give me leave to try again. Come, we are alone and there are none to chide us. Let us do as politics intended." His voice was growing cold, commanding.

"I will do no such thing, nor give you leave to let you take the right," Rhoswen declared, pushing herself away from him across the grass, stumbling to push herself to her feet.

"Why do you recoil? I am no thief!"

"You are not yourself!"

"What would you know of who I am?" Boromir asked viciously, and her hand connected with his face again, jolting his mind across a vast eclipse of darkness. When he opened his eyes and looked at her again, the veil of dark mist had lifted from his eyes, and he could see now that she was hurt -- grievously hurt.

"I know you are better than the words you speak now," Rhoswen spat. "I know you have honor, and you will not so easily take mine. I said today I was a peasant, but I am no whore."

The hated word 'whore' hit Boromir as if she had slapped him again, and only served to make his vision clearer still. Whatever darkness had overtaken him was receeding now, and quickly. His vision was normal, the sky was bright again. Suddenly he felt unclean, as though some hideous monster had disgorged him from its depths. "Rhoswen..." he begged. How to make her see? It had not been him, it had been something else!

"Leave me alone!" she cried, tripping and tumbling through the field, paying no mind to the grass that sprang back in her wake, blocking her path from view.

"Rhoswen!" Boromir called again. "Rhoswen!" He stumbled blindly into the waving grain, grasping about in the grass as though he might be able to catch her that way. "Rhosw—" His eyes had been minding the grass, and not the ground he tread on, and his boot, catching on a knot of grasses, tripped him up, sending him headfirst to the ground, where he knocked his head against the ground and a dark veil descended over his eyes.

When he awoke, it seemed a considerable time had passed. The sun had fallen lower in the afternoon sky, and the wind, what little there was of it, was still lazily moving the wheat back and forth in a golden tide. Of Rhoswen there was no sign, and Boromir cursed the silent demon that had driven him so. What right had he to ask that of her? And now she was gone, running away from him like a frightened doe, betrayed by the one person she thought she could trust.

"Fool!" Boromir hissed to himself. "She will not answer my call now." The scene changed color for a moment, the golden grass shifting to a less brilliant yellow, and the Captain looked up to see a cloud rolling in, followed by a host more, each one in the succession looking more and more ominous looking. A roll of thunder crackled through the sky, and a little ways off he thought he could hear raindrops pattering closer. The rainstorm was approaching. _And when it arrives she will be out in the middle of it without cloak or hood_, Boromir thought grimly_. She did not run back to the villages._ He walked back to the feasting revelers in silence, finding his brother in the very best of moods and trading song verses with some of the farmers from the village. Pulling Faramir aside, Boromir's news made his younger brother quickly solemn.

"We shall mount up riders. She cannot be left out in the storm. And she is only one woman, she cannot have gotten far!" Faramir was all for haste and quick decision, but when his brother hung back, the same guilty expression on his face, Faramir knew there was more to the story. "Brother, why did she run away?" Faramir asked quietly.

"I asked a dishonorable thing of her, Fara. I asked for what she should not have given me," Boromir said miserably. "I do not know why I did it, only that I did and…now she is gone!"

"That she needs to be found is the only important thing now," Faramir counseled his brother. "Mount up with us, and nothing need be said of why she ran."

Boromir nodded, following in his brother's wake as Faramir gave orders and shouted directions, bringing the party to an abrupt halt as farmers went for their horses to ride out to the far fields and the women walked to cover the ground where the horses could not go.

It seemed they had only been searching for a short while when the rain began, first as a welcome trickle and then as in pouring sheets, the sky so gray and dark it became hard to see, and the ground slick with mud and flattened grass. All throughout the fields people were shouting her name, and Boromir's heart was only sharpened in grief by the sound of it. Where could she have gone?

He was at the edge of the fields now, where a lane ran beside the Rammas Echor for the outriders to use. The wall was crumbling here, one of the older sections that was letting in the wolves that Cuhon had mentioned. Wolves, Boromir remembered, his heart falling even deeper at the thought.

"My lord!" Someone shouted from farther down the lane. "My lord, we've found her!"

Boromir spurred his horse to pursue the cry, following the lane near the Rammas Echor to another point in the crumbling wall. Boromir's eyes searched the gray stone through the driving rain until they found what they were looking for – a human shape clad in tawny brown, huddled against the stones of the wall, soaked through from the rain. Boromir dismounted immediately and ran to her, the upsurge of joy that they had found her quickly canceling out the melancholy and fatigue the rain had brought with.

Rhoswen gave a whimper of pain when he picked her up, her ankle swollen and the skin throbbing around it. But her eyes did not open. "Take care, my lord," someone said. "She may have twisted it on the rocks."

But Boromir was beyond advice or calls – the only thing he cared about was the woman cradled across his saddle like a limp doll, unresponsive to shout or call. He kept his horse in a gallop all the way back through Minas Tirith, the streets empty for the rain. Shouts went up as his horse thundered into the sixth level, sides streaked with sweat and rain, both rider and horse breathing heavily.

"Send for the Steward! A healer!"

"Are you hurt, my lord?" someone asked him as he handed off Rhoswen and slipped off the horse's back himself, landing a little clumsily.

"See to her first," Boromir rasped, pointing after Rhoswen, who was being carried swiftly inside. "I have no need of leeches now." He stumbled inside the King's House, up the stairs to his bedroom and his bed. He felt sick now, too, his stomach turning circles inside him. And his head! His head was pounding like a battle drum. He only just managed to strip off his sodden outer tunic and his boots before he collapsed, exhausted, on the bed.

* * *

It could be shorter, but I didn't feel like cutting it down. It's been kind of a crazy past few months here in Galway, so I haven't been great about updating anything, really, but I hope you enjoy this and I hope the length makes up for any of its other deficits. Reviews would be lovely -- I'm not so sure this chapter works, if you know what I mean.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

_And on that cheek, and o'er that brow, _

_So soft, so calm, yet eloquent, _

_The smiles that win, the tints that glow,_

_But tell of days in goodness spent, _

_A mind at peace with all below, _

_A heart whose love is innocent!  
_

_-She Walks in Beauty, George Gordon Byron _

* * *

When Boromir opened his eyes again, the sun was too bright and whatever bird was outside his window was far too cheery. He gave a none-too-muffled grunt and tried to turn over, the ringing in his head forcing him back to his original position.

"Ah, the sleeping giant awakes! Well, how do you feel?" his brother's excessively merry voice asked far too loudly.

"I feel like I just drank a whole cask of ale and then had a legion of dwarves beat my body to a bloody carcass," Boromir said, throwing an arm over his eye to block out the sun coming through his window. "Will you shut that curtain and quiet down? My head rings like an anvil."

"Well, you should be given credit for at least taking your tunic off first. You were sleeping like a bear in winter when I came in and none could move you." Faramir twitched the curtain over the window shut and plunged the room back into comfortable pre-dawn darkness.

"What time is it?" The High Warden asked wearily.

"Late afternoon. Were you really that tired, brother?" Faramir wanted to know.

Suddenly the Captain-Heir remembered why he had gone to bed feeling so terribly in the first place. "Rhoswen!" Boromir exclaimed, sitting up quickly and holding a hand to his head again as his vision swam with his sudden movement.

"She has been taken care of, brother. The ankle was broken, as it happens, and she had a fever. Boromir," Faramir said cautiously, watching his brother for his reaction, "She said strange things in her dreams."

Boromir's face fell, and he closed his eyes, putting his face in his hands. "I not know what possessed me, Faramir. My mind said strange things, and I followed them, not thinking of anyone but myself. Such things I said to her…" He trailed off, remembering. "I asked for what no honest woman would give. And she held to her honor while I cast mine aside. What monster am I, Faramir?"

"You are no monster," Faramir said strongly. _Only a man, if you would remember it sometimes_.

"After she denied me, I felt…as though something had left me. An evil ghost. And I felt unclean, as though something inside my body were rotten to the core."

"And then you were taken ill," Faramir added. "You should be seen by a healer, Boromir, this sounds –"

"Tell me not how it sounds, brother, I know already how it sounds!" Boromir exclaimed. _It sounds like magic, and none of the good kind, either._ "Speak of it to no one. I cannot be thought weak, not now. The people have need to trust in their captains to lead them in times such as these. If I can be corrupted…" he trailed off. "Is she fit to see anyone now?" he asked, blearily opening his eyes and feeling the stubble on his cheeks.

"She sleeps," Faramir said quietly.

"I will not wake her," Boromir promised. "I could not face her now."

Rhoswen was indeed sleeping when Boromir and Faramir entered the Houses of Healing, her face not peaceful but rather troubled, as if in dreams she was still haunted by something she would not name.

"Her fever has calmed," the Warden said. "Had you seen her last night you would have looked upon delirium of a dangerous kind. But the worst, we think, has passed. She needs sleep now, and no surprises when she wakes," he added, glancing at Boromir.

"I will not trouble you, then," Boromir said, turning for the door and leaving quickly, giving no pause and no look back.

"Serves him right," one of the older healers said stubbornly. "Bringing Lady Rhoswen back in a rainstorm with a twisted ankle. There's help and there's hindrance, and he's nothing but hindrance now. Oh, they may say one thing as to how she got that ankle of hers broken but I know!" she threatened, gazing angrily in the Captain-Heir's wake.

"Do not hold him too much in fault, healer. He carries his own guilt heavily, and I think can bear no more from others. This has been cruel to him," Faramir said defensively.

"Been cruel to her, too," the healer added blackly. "Still, at least I can keep track of her now to give her lessons. No wandering off for the Lady now!"

"You are the healer who has been teaching the Lady herbs," Faramir realized. "Ioreth, that is your name."

"Aye, my lord," she said, bobbing an awkward curtsey.

"What is that smell?" Faramir asked, looking around the room and seeing only a bowl of some strange leaf, steeping in steaming water.

"Only kingsfoil," Ioreth said. "I keep it for the smell it gives, though it has little purpose for the others. Perhaps it is some comfort to her. To me it smells of Imloth Melui, and to others gorse, and still others clover fields and barley."

"I smell roses," Faramir said, sad in his reminiscence. "I smell my mother's roses, and her perfume." He looked again and Rhoswen, sleeping soundly, and turned towards the door. "Let us leave her sleep," he said softly. "She does not have need for waking yet."

* * *

Rhoswen remembered falling asleep on a stone wall. She had been wet and shivering and angry at herself for running so far, but this was no wall and she was no longer wet. She was inside, and she was warm, and the room smelled like her mother's garden. But this was not Anfalas.

"My lady wakes!" someone said brightly, bustling into the room with a basket full of something. Rhoswen rubbed her eyes and tried to sit up, finding when she tried to drag herself up that there was a heavy bundle of bandages on her ankle. The bright voice, she saw, was Ioreth, and the basket, it seemed, was full of bottles and jars – the makings of another day's lesson.

"Am I in the Houses?" Rhoswen asked, blinking a few times to clear her eyes.

"Yes, my lady, and it's lucky you are."

"Where is the Lord Boromir?" the lady asked again, looking around half expecting to see her bear-like betrothed lurking in a corner, waiting for her to wake up. But there was no one. Only Ioreth, bristling at the mention of the Captain Heir. _Let her bristle. He tried to hurt you!_ Something defensive and angry in her mind said. _But he was unwell. He was not himself. That was not Boromir who spoke._

"Gone back to Osgiliath, and good riddance to him. You've been asleep a long while, my lady, and he did not have time to wait. Not that he was doing his waiting here, mind you. Got better things to do than trouble what's already been troubled."

And she would say no more, despite all of Rhoswen's questions and cajoling and pleading. Ioreth taught her a simple salve for sunburns, and the not-so-very white White Rose spent the rest of her day grinding, mixing and filling jars until her arms ached and Ioreth cleared the necessary herbs from the room, spreading the smooth paste on Rhoswen's face for her and covering it with strips of cloth so it would keep while she slept. The next day it was much of the same – a different mixture, this one a dry blend of herbs for tea – but Rhoswen's questions remained unanswered. And as surely as Rhoswen ground down herbs for her potions and poultices Ioreth's resolve ground down Rhoswen's need for answers, until finally she no longer asked, though Boromir's absence bit her still.

Visitors came and went – some of the court ladies with small gifts of one kind or another, sachets they had embroidered and personal recipes for calming teas. Faeldes visited, bringing news and her little daughters, six and ten years of age, to see Rhoswen and sit for a while with her, practicing their own embroidery on small, delicate hoops. But none were the visitor she really wanted to see. Finally after a fortnight, when she could stir from her bed and was allowed the small walk to a chair on the other side of the room Faramir came, bearing two bundles of greenery as a gift.

"I was bidden to give you these by one Bergil the son of Beregond, who sits outside the doors and is desolate that they will not let him in," Faramir said good-naturedly, handing over a raggedy bundle of the season's last blooms and weedy flowers, picked by an impatient hand and held with a child's heavy fist, the stems and leaves somewhat crushed. Rhoswen smiled at the effort and the love that must have gone into it and beckoned for Maireth. "The others have come from Ithilien, with me. We have no finer flowers this time of year, but the color, I thought, would do your heart good, gardener that you seem intent on being. There is a man in my company who has an eye for such things – his family were once dyers." Faramir's bundle was a clipping of autumn leaves, orange, yellow and golden tipped crimson standing beautiful on their branches, much more expertly cut and gently bundled.

"Maireth, bring two vases, if they can be found, for the flowers and these stems. And bring them here," she said knowingly. "I know you'd throw Bergil's out sooner than I could save them."

Maireth frowned at the little boy's offering but went to find vases nonetheless. "I'll tell the healers that if he comes back he should be allowed in," Rhoswen said affectionately. "He is a dear little boy, and always manages to make me laugh."

"How do you come to know Beregond's son?" Faramir asked, sitting down in the room's single chair to take a burden off his feet, intending to stay for at least a little while before making his report to his father.

"He came to the Houses with a cut on his hand. I cleaned it for him, and he has come back with his friends very often since. If I can be found, he always asks for me. And he will be sad if he comes and the flowers are not there. Though they will look rather sad," Rhoswen admitted, looking fondly at the little scraggly bundle in her hand.

"Does my brother have a rival?" the younger son of Denethor asked in good humor, watching as Rhoswen smiled and shook her head no.

"Bergil esteems Boromir more than can be put into words. He is the world to that boy. That is half of why he esteems me so." Maireth appeared at the door bearing two vessels, one tall and slim and clearly made for bearing flowers, the other a simple pottery jar, short enough for Bergil's little bundle.

"And the other half?" Faramir asked, watching as Rhoswen arranged the woody stems in one vase, setting it by the windowsill and placed Bergil's ragtag blooms in the other, setting it near her bedside where the sun would catch it.

"I think he needs a mother. " Rhoswen hung her head, sighing and then looking past the cut branches out the little window to the Pelannor. "Faramir, why has he not come to visit?" She did not need to say it was not of Bergil that she now spoke.

Faramir's voice was grave and conciliatory, the ring of a rehearsed answer in every tone. "His duty keeps him at Osgiliath, my lady."

"Faramir," Rhoswen said threateningly. "I am not so young I do not know when I am being lied to. He could make time to come home when I was _not_ ill."

It was now Faramir's turn to look away. "His guilt still lies heavy on him. He cannot bring himself to face you, after what was said in the fields."

"And has he told you of those words?" Rhoswen tested, watching the younger brother's face.

"He has."

"And have you advised him to stay away?"

_Oh, that sweet voice of hers can cut when she lets it,_ Faramir mused. "I have given him no counsel, and if he would listen I would tell him to return here to see you. But he will take no advice but his own."

"If I promised him forgiveness, gave him…some token to show I was sincere…" Rhoswen's offer tapered off, unable to even think of any other option.

But Faramir shook his head. "Boromir will accept nothing from you unless he begs for it first. That is the penance he has set for himself, and you must let him bear it. His guilt he will carry on a little longer."

"But why? Why must he do these things?"

"To learn his lesson. That has always been his way. Or our father's way, rather. To keep the guilt around long enough that eventually only the memory of that shame is enough to deter the mischief maker. Let him bear it out a little while more. He loves you the only way he knows how, my lady – more as a treasure than a person. Now he fears he has broken you, and is frightened to touch you for fear of breaking you a second time."

"He is a proud man," Rhoswen observed aloud. "He will not beg."

"And now you know why he does not come sooner. He wrestles with his pride and with his guilt. And they are strong opponents, Lady, armed well against such a man as my brother. They will not easily let him win."

* * *

And after being gone for three months in a foreign country this is a poor excuse for an update, but my muse seems to have fled for Valinor on this story, which is sad and unfortunate. In fact, my muses, all of them, plural, have flat out and bailed on me. I expect that's because they don't want to spend the next semester writing lesson plans, but that's the life of a third year college student for you.

To put it in plain language, readers, I don't know whether I'll be able to finish this. I want to, I know all the ideas are all in there. But the effort, that's evading me. If any of you have any suggestions on how to jumpstart a sluggish brain, feel free to message me. Until then, this is one car that is staying stalled on the side of the writing interstate.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

I found that ivory image there

Dancing with her chosen youth,

But when he wound her coal-black hair

As though to strangle her, no scream

Or bodily movement did I dare,

Eyes under eyelids did so gleam;

_Love is like the lion's tooth._

_--Crazy Jane Looks on the Dancers_, William Butler Yeats

* * *

Narbeleth passed, and Hithui was just rising out of the frosty crusts its predecessor had left behind when finally – finally – The Captain-Heir of Gondor was seen riding home from Osgiliath with the men of his company, drawn home by a letter from his father and news from other provinces, of visitors and waiting tidings. But Rhoswen of Anfalas had not been told, and so it was with complete surprise that she received the High Warden, arriving unannounced in the Houses of Healing.

"Boromir!" Rhoswen exclaimed happily, trying to rise from the chair in which she sat and failing as the binding and splints around her ankle impeded her. "What is this?" she asked, waiting as he took a wrapped package from a servant behind him.

The captain-heir strode into the room and knelt at her feet, forcing her back into the chair so she could look into his eyes. "I have brought you the sea you have missed so much," He said, laying down in her hands a large conch shell, whitened and smoothed by the sea's long course. Rhoswen took one look at it and laid it aside, her eyes brimming with tears at what it meant. Instead she clasped him to her breast, kissing the top of his head and cradling his face to her body, his own eyes wet with tears. "I have forgiveness to ask of you," he murmured.

"It is given," Rhoswen said softly, untangling the ends of his hair with her fingers, a gesture that harkened him back to his childhood, when his mother had sat and combed his hair with her fingers, too. "Given without payment or bribe before even the merest mention of any such thing came to my ears."

"Can you do such a thing? Forgive so freely?"

"That is the nature of forgiveness, to let it be given freely." She let him go, wiping his face with the corner of her sleeve so the tear-trails would not show. "I know you," she assured him, holding his face in her hands. "I know you have honor." _I know it was not you who spoke out in the field that day. No wine, however strong, could make a man that evil._

"Honorable men bring gifts where they have done wrong," Boromir countered.

"You are gift enough," Rhoswen said, leaning closer and touching her forehead to his, a simple gesture that somehow made Boromir's heart stir. I did not realize how cold I had been before she touched me, and brought me warmth again, he thought to himself. He had been cold since Harvest-Day, and now it seemed the chill was lifted. His fingers, curled around hers, suddenly no longer seemed icicles.

"That is unfortunate, lady," Boromir said with a hint of a smile, his tears beginning again as he laughed a little. "For I cannot easily be rid the other gift I brought if you will not take it." He turned towards the door and beckoned to something, and another figure stepped forth from the corridor into the light of the room. Rhoswen's face changed immediately, lighting up with surprised joy. "Erun!" she cried, opening her arms for an embrace.

"Yes, little sister, your brother has come to cheer you," the young man said, striding forward to give his sister the embrace she so desperately craved. "I am the rest of the sea your betrothed sought to bring you."

"Your gifts are too rich, my lord," Rhoswen said, turning from her brother's embrace back to face her betrothed.

"My gifts are enough," Boromir said simply. "I will leave you alone to talk."

* * *

"She sleeps," the youngest son of Lord Golasgil said as he left Rhoswen's room, quietly shutting the door behind him. The door shut, his expression quickly changed, happiness for solemnity, compassion for censure. "If we had met again in happier circumstances I might like you more, my lord," Erun said bluntly. "But I find I do not forgive as easily as my sister does."

"If I had a sister in such a circumstance I might say the same," Boromir replied fairly.

"That you are highborn and rightfully my liege lord keeps my tongue civil and my heart from speaking rashly," Erun said coldly, turning away as if to look at Boromir disgusted him.

"You are to be my brother; you should speak freely," Boromir dared the younger man, his voice just as cold as the other man's, just as if they were not men but two wolves, circling a kill, trying to guess out the other's weakness in half-heard snarls.

Erun turned quickly, stepping closer to Boromir than the older man would have anticipated, nose to nose and toe to toe, speaking only in whispers. "If you were a lesser man I might kill you for what you have done – or tried to do. It takes no great mind to guess what made my sister run into a field she did not know," the youngest son of Golasgil accused.

"And you would be right to do it," the Captain-Heir admitted. "But I swear to you, Erun of Anfalas, on my sword and my horn, the rights of my birth and the signs of my honor, that since I have known her I have loved your sister dearly and I will allow no harm to come to her while I still draw breath."

"Can you protect her from yourself, my lord?" Erun's voice bit back. "High words are one thing, but well spoken or no, men are men."

"Then I can give you no surety that you can trust. But know that I have strived night and day to deserve her since my error, and I will strive longer still knowing I have not yet earned her forgiveness, however freely she gives it."

"Forgiveness…" Erun chuckled blackly, shaking his head and stepping away. "I know a little of forgiveness, my lord. When I was six my mother was taken from me. Quickly, and cruelly, too – of a fever got in childbed, birthing my sister. Exchanging one life for another is the cruelest kind of death, they say, and I will speak to the truth of that. What use did four brothers have for a sister? They wanted their mother, and _she_ had taken her away. We ignored her until we were old enough to understand our error. Six _years_ we pay her no heed. And then…" He paused. "I remember a day when Carnil came back home from…something. A hunt, a collection, some feast. He went and found her and swept her up in his arms, looked at her and asked, very gravely, "Little Rhoswen, how are you today?" We knew not why; he has never told us. But he did it. And she answered him with a kiss on his cheek, saying "Very well, brother, how are you?" He cried," Erun remembered, his voice soft and a shadow of a tear hovering in his own eye. "It was not we who ended up forgiving, but her. For what right had we to blame a child for the death? She forgave Carnil his rebuke of her as only little children can, and the rest of us, when we asked as he had. She had no need for hate, nor did we. And we have loved her dearly ever since."

"I…I did not know." Something in his own voice sounded hollow, Boromir thought, without meaning.

"There are many things you do not know, my lord, though you have your high houses and your towers to defend them. It is my sister's way, to forgive and love where it is not deserved. Doubtless she loved you before you had given her cause to, and doubtless now she loves you still though she should hate. Though she has no great fortune you should count yourself the richest man in the world to marry that."

"I see that now," Boromir acknowledged. "You should go to her," He added brusquely, feeling hated once again for lingering. "She has need of a watcher, and those who keep her care do not like me overmuch."

Erun smiled coldly and wryly, but he bowed his head in a civil manner and went back to his sister's bedside. _I should have known with four brothers that something like this would come one day. I only wish it had not been this day, or indeed this brother, the one she is closest to. But I asked for him, and they have sent him, and now I must live with it._

* * *

As winter began setting its icy fingers further into the slopes of Mount Mindollin Boromir and Faramir's visits became fewer and fewer. Often they were unannounced and briefer than Rhoswen would have liked, but welcome all the same. For his own part, Denethor did not spend much time in the houses of healing – Arthion told Rhoswen one day when the Steward took his leave that Denethor's memories of the Houses were not good ones, and reminded him too much of his beloved Finduilas, who had spent much time here near the end of her too-short life.

It was strange, though, that on Faramir's next visit he brought a friend with him. The younger brother always came alone, staying only for a short time and then going to make his reports to his father. But someone was delaying him outside in the hallway, and Rhoswen, deep in the middle of the little book of herbs and their uses she was putting together for her own use, struggled to hear them as the voices faded in, coming closer to her room.

"Mithrandir, I worry that his mind was overtaken somehow. When Rhoswen speaks of it, she says adamantly that he was _not himself . _That is how she describes it, always."

The voice that answered was another man's, older, and with a different cadence in his voice, as though he did not claim the White City as his home. "Your brother is a masterful man, and known to be so by many. And there was wine, you have said; It takes no great mind to imagine a few too many cupfuls…" the voice trailed off.

"Not with Lady Rhoswen. He loves her deeply, and would not hurt her. Nor would he take that advance against her in so dishonorable a way."

The older voice bristled. "I will see the girl, but only for your sake, Faramir. Far greater business draws me here than leechcraft on foolish young women."

Faramir soon appeared in the doorway, followed by an elderly man, tall, bearded and cloaked in gray. He had an air of wisdom about him, of one who has seen much and seldom speaks of any of it. "Rhoswen, this is Mithrandir," Faramir announced, stepping aside to allow the older man into the room. "He is a …friend of mine, and a teacher. He is here visiting the City, and I wished for him to meet you."

"We know little of wizards in my country," Rhoswen said, guessing past Faramir's poorly rehearsed lies into the elderly man's true countenance. "But even I know when Faramir is not telling all he knows."

"My wanderings seldom take me close to the sea and the Langstrand, Rhoswen of Anfalas," Mithrandir said, a twinkle in his eye as she showed her surprise that he knew her name. "Oh, yes, I know your name, and a great many things besides, but that is a parlor trick and no real magic. Faramir tells me you've been ill," he said conversationally, sitting down and arranging his robes with efficient twitches.

"A chill, merely. I was out too long in the rain after I twisted my ankle. Broke my ankle," she amended, shuffling the bedcovers where a heavy mass of bandages and splinting lay underneath the covers.

"Give me your hand," the wizard said, gesturing for the appendage. "Faramir also neglects to tell you I am something of a healer as well as a wizard."

Rhoswen put down her book and held out her right hand, allowing the old wizard to take it within his own. His fingers were dusty, but strangely warm, and comforting, as if a secret fire dwelt there solely to warm them on winter nights and charm cold hearts back into humanity. The wizard bent his head, muttering to himself, and she felt her hand grow warm underneath his touch. His brow furrowed, and her hand grew hot, but she could not release it from his grasp, and closed her eyes, trying to dull the pain. Then, just as suddenly as it had come about, it left. Mithrandir released her hand. Rhoswen drew it back to her, inspecting it; but though she felt as though she had been burned, there was no mark on her skin.

"I sense nothing wrong with you," he said, rising from his chair. "Apart from a few healing bones and a desire for quiet. We should leave her, Faramir – she needs her rest, and I have need to see the archives."

The two men drew away, out into the hallway, and Rhoswen moved down in her bed to sleep. Her eyes were closed, but she could still hear Faramir and the wizard out in the corridor, talking in low voices.

"She has been touched by shadow," Mithrandir was saying. Rhoswen struggled to keep her eyes shut and listened intently, wondering what was so serious the wizard had not mentioned it in front of her.

"Shadow?"

"Not Him – it is not strong enough, deep enough for his magic. But something possessed your brother for those brief moments, and it has left a mark on her. On your brother there will also be stronger signs."

"But what could have done this? Who?" Faramir's voice was full of concern. "If, as you say, it is not Him."

"I do not have the knowledge to make that judgment," Mithrandir admitted. "Ever was he the Deceiver and the Corrupter – though what purpose would be served by exposing her to Shadow I could not say. But it was an infant spell, something only just beginning to be realized. I think its maker sought to practice it. And if his movements were not his own…" Mithrandir trailed off, wondering. "The Captain-Heir of Gondor would be an ideal candidate for such control — but something stopped its full implementation. Distance, inability, a lack of necessary materials. I go to take council in the North when my business here is finished. Perhaps the answer lies there. Unless…"

Mithrandir had stopped speaking, and Rhoswen lay in her bed, listening intently, sheets drawn up to her chin, as if by making herself smaller under the covers whatever evil thing it was could not touch her again.

"Mithrandir?" Faramir asked, trying to draw the wizard out of his reverie.

"We live in grave times, Faramir," the wizard said quickly, obviously not what he had been thinking. "Remember that."

"Never is it far from my mind," Faramir said. "What do you wish to see in the archives?"

"Do you know of Isildur's Book? I have a desperate question that only it may answer." Mithrandir asked, but she heard Faramir give no answer. She heard steps in the corridor, walking away from the room, and after that heard no more, slipping into sleep with her thoughts swirling. _It was not him! It was not! But something in him must have desired those things, to make them so under another's hand. _And one thought rose above the rest with frightening clarity.

_Oh, Rhoswen. There are so many things at work here of which you know nothing._

* * *

Rhoswen's brother caused his own share of fuss among the ladies of the city as well as in Boromir's mind; Merethel, for one, began visiting Rhoswen more frequently than their short acquaintance and limited friendship would usually forecast. But he was well-liked by those that met him – especially Bergil, who, upon finding out that this tall man with the dark hair and the strange tunic was one of Rhoswen's famous brothers, explained in vivid terms his own knife cut and the situation that had led him to meeting Rhoswen.

Erun nodded seriously for the whole story and asked questions in all the right places, amused by the eight year old's enthusiasm with his tale. "Do they teach you the bow here in the city, Bergil?" he asked, glancing at his sister with a mischievous glint in his eye. Rhoswen frowned a little, wondering what her older brother was up to.

"Yes," replied the son of Beregond. "All the Tower Guard carry a short bow, and if you are chosen to be an Ithilien ranger you learn the longbow."

"Erun was a Ranger for a little while; did I tell you that?" Rhoswen asked, exchanging a glance with Erun, who nodded, unable to hide his smile at Bergil's hugely impressed expression.

"How big was your bow? My friend Halbergin says they are six feet tall, but I do not believe him."

"My longbow," Erun said, looking Bergil up and down, "is just a little taller than you are." He held his hand above the boy's head to show the size, and Bergil's eyes widened. "It was made for me in Anfalas, where we have many hunters who use such bows for their work. To hold it back one must be very strong. Would you like to try it some time with me?"

"Erun is very good with a bow and arrows. At home he used to catch fish by shooting them in the river!" Rhoswen added, the boy's building delight making her own smile a little wide.

"Yes, please!" Bergil said, very excited now that he was getting a lesson in archery from an actual archer.

"When will you have time for such a thing? Have you a week-end when you are given a spare hour or two?" Erun queried, and so it began -- between the two of them they riddled out a time and a place for the meeting, and sent Bergil on his way terribly excited that he was going to learn archery from a sometime Ranger of Ithilien.

"He could be my son, with his looks," Erun said, watching Bergil scramble back to his lessons as the city bells chimed the hour. "Or yours. You get along with him well enough."

"Speak not to me of children, Erun. It frightens me to speak of such things," Rhoswen said bluntly. Erun turned his attention to his sister, interested and concerned by what she said, and Rhoswen went on. "Everyone here speaks of it so readily, and I cannot very well tell them to stop. Ioreth insists I have the right frame to take birth easily, and when the Lord Denethor mentions grandchildren so casually I feel that if our marriage produces none I will be…discarded. But I fear it, Erun," Rhoswen confessed anxiously. "I did not know my mother." Her voice was quiet but heavy with memory. "It is a fate I would wish on no one."

"You are young yet, far younger than Mother when she birthed you. You will have no trouble in child-bed." Erun's words were full of encouragement but his voice, his sister could tell, was anxious, unused to speaking about this …woman's business. _But with whom else can I speak? Tongues are long in Minas Tirith. Those women I do know will tell someone or another that the Captain-Heir's wife fears childbed and then where will I be? Back fighting a war of words with women like Serawen, I suppose._

"I want so much to give him a son, brother. To watch him teach a boy the sword, and the bow, and the spear…but a little girl, that would be sweetness itself, too. He would treasure her, I know he would." Rhoswen's face brightened at the thought, and Erun, watching her, smiled faintly, too. "But _I_ would want to treasure them, too."

"It is not yet time for these things, Rhoswen. Do no trouble yourself where you need not. Did I tell you Baineth has taken interest in your garden?" Erun asked, changing the subject quickly. The rest of their time passed without any more mention of children, or childbirth, or other difficult things Rhoswen could not set aside and her brother could not spare her from, no matter how much he wanted to try.

* * *

I'm not promising I'm back. I'm not promising completion. I'm just taking it one chapter at a time. I've got a little stockpile and I've got some ideas, but the motor's still not consistently running smoothly.

There's some stuff in this chapter I'm pretty sure my picky reviewers won't like (and I know there are a few of you who have VERY high standards, thank you for sticking with me so far.) But I've got tough skin, I hope, and I think I can take whatever you dish me.

But do dish me something, please? My plate's empty. Fill it with reviews!


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten

_Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,_

_Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;_

_They were but sweet, but figures of delight,_

_Drawn after you, you pattern of all those._

_Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,_

_As with your shadow I with these did play._

--Sonnet 98, William Shakespeare

_Tired. So mortally, eternally tired._ Boromir closed his eyes and tried to think beyond the fatigue that lay heavy behind his eyes. It seemed he had not slept soundly for months now, waking at every bell, shout or voice in Osgiliath. He was anxious, and his men were anxious because he was anxious, and he hated himself for showing them that. The High Warden had no business being anything but strong and courageous. Anxious, tired leaders never won battles. _And we need to win every battle that comes to us, now more than ever_, Boromir mused.

He was heading home again to exchange some of his Out Company for the guards who had been serving in the City Companies for the better part of the year. They were all tired, he knew, and would be glad to be home with their families for the next six months or so before the same change would put them back in Osgiliath. He would visit some of the sick in the Houses of Healing and of course, there would be time for Rhoswen, too.

His betrothed seemed to be thriving now in the Tower of Guard, less like the shy, frightened girl who had first come to the city at the end of summer and more like a woman grown hardened to the tides of the city's people rather than the sea she had grown up with. Her brother Erun had promised to stay and winter in the city, claiming his father did not need him when the snow began to fall and the bays and inlets froze. Boromir was glad to know she had some companionship in her brother, even if he knew the man still disliked him intensely.

A scrap of wind blew his cloak open, and Boromir snatched at the free end with a gloved hand, trying to catch it before the wind shook all the warmth off of him. Men were saying the winter would be harsh this year, harsh for a southern winter at least, and Boromir believed them. The skies had already settled into their permanently gray cast and the grass crushed under the horses' hooves, stiff with the frosts, the road home silvery white.

Home. Home meant fires and hot meals and a real bed for a few days with down comforters and a mattress so comfortable he felt guilty sleeping on it when his men back in Osgiliath had straw stuffed beds and woolen camp blankets. Home meant listening to Father rant over dinner, and interceding on Faramir's behalf, and Rhoswen.

Boromir wasn't sure now why he had not decided to marry sooner in life; being able to come home to someone who cared so much for him, who wanted to know every detail and battle maneuver just for the joy of hearing his voice and knowing he was still alive at the end of all of it, was a wonderful thing. When he was younger, first given his responsibilities as High Warden of the Tower and Captain-Heir and Chief Commander of the Out-Companies, he had scoffed at the older married men who spoke with such fondness of returning home to their wives and their children. Scoffed and gone home to drink his ale and seek his pleasurable company in the lower city and remain untied to anyone. But he was finding now he wanted to be tied down. He wanted home to mean more than fights with his father and a bed he felt bad about sleeping in.

_And you want a warmer bed, too_, a vicious, simple part of his mind reasoned. _There's only so much warmth in down coverlets. _

_I'd like to think there's more to this desire than that,_ Boromir retorted inwardly. _Perhaps I am getting old._

But he was not terribly old, he reminded himself. His father had married at forty-six, and his mother had been twenty years Denethor's junior. He was only thirty-nine, and Rhoswen almost twenty. _Not so very different from my parents. That has always been the way of marriage in this country._

Twenty six. That had been his mother's age when she had wed, not…_terribly _old by a woman's standards. And yet his father had chosen younger, so much younger, for him, because he wanted grandsons, and many of them. _He never desired them before._ _Something is not right with Father._ Boromir knew this, had known this for a long time, longer than he wanted to admit to. Their fights were more frequent, and not always about Faramir now, either. His mood was so changeable, and the Steward himself was always so tense, as if expecting to be attacked at any moment by an unseen foe. And he spent too many hours locked away in his towers. Doing what, no one could say.

_What do I know of leechcraft, or the workings of the minds of men?_ Boromir reminded himself. _Let other men watch his health, and let me watch my borders and my troops, and remain with what I know._

Climbing the familiar steps up to the family quarters of the Steward's house was like repeating a prayer, feet hitting the same grooves in the steps that too many generations of feet had worn down, the body's cares melting away as the familiar feeling of home settled around the shoulders like a warm mantle. Boromir had repeated the same steps for years on his returns from Osgiliath, but lately he had added a detour – a trip to Rhoswen's rooms. She was usually the first person he went to greet now, if his father did not ask for his especial haste. And to see her face was all the reward he needed some days.

Her solar was empty except for one maid, scraping the ashes out of the fireplace. She rose up ungracefully when Boromir entered, bobbing a half-formed curtsey that nearly sent her tumbling to the floor.

"Where is the Lady Rhoswen?" Boromir asked abruptly, looking around in case his fiancée was perhaps hiding in a chair somewhere, still and silent so as to remain invisible to over-quick eyes. She was good at doing that, too, and he had never quite worked out how she managed it.

"Her ladyship's out in her garden with Lord Erun, my lord," the maid supplied.

"What, in this weather?" Boromir asked to no one in particular, spinning around on his heel and heading quickly out, bound for his mother's garden several stories up, nestled against the wall of the city. It would be dead there now, he knew, and there was no more work for Rhoswen there until spring. So why should she be entertaining her brother there instead of inside, where it was warm and without wind?

The door to what had once been his mother's garden was shut tightly against the wind, but as he eased the door open he heard the strains of some stringed instrument, and a woman's voice, singing. _I did not know she sang,_ Boromir mused, thankful that the door did not creak as he opened it wider and slipped inside, some childish part of his mind wanting to surprise his fiancée. _Why did I not know she sang?_ Shutting the door behind him, Boromir was suddenly reminded of his childhood and slipping inside the garden to find his mother. But Finduilas had not been one for singing. Oh, she had possessed a marvelous voice, though, and she would tell the grandest stories to her sons. Boromir smiled in spite of himself, dimly remembering the woman who had died when he was only ten, and quietly approached the bench where Rhoswen had launched into another song, slower and more contemplative than the first.

"Clear or cloudy, sweet as April show'ring,

Smooth or frowning, so is his face to me.

Pleas'd or smiling, like mild May all flow'ring,

When skies blue silk, and meadows carpets be,

His speeches' notes of that nightbird that singeth,

Who thought all sweet, yet jarring notes out ringeth."

Her brother was sitting across the path from her, nodding along with the music. His gaze strayed to Boromir and he nodded slightly when the Captain-Heir held a finger to his lips to call for silence.

"His mood like June, when earth and trees be trimmed

In best attire of complete beauty's height.

His love again like Summer's days bedimmed

With little clouds of doubtful constant faith.

His trust, his doubt, like rain and heat in skies

Gently thund'ring, he lightning to mine eyes.

Sweet summer Spring, that breathed life and growing

In weeds as into healing herbs and flow'rs,

And sees of service, divers sorts in sowing,

Some haply seeming, and some being, yours,

Rain on your herbs and flow'rs that truly serve,

And let your weeds lack dew, and duly starve."

Boromir clapped, and the pair turned towards the entrance to the garden, Rhoswen surprised and Erun politely acknowledging, smiling in amusement at his sister's surprise. _So at least I earn his respect for wanting to make her laugh,_ Boromir mused. "I did not know you played, my lady, or else I would have asked you to do so before," he said, coming into the garden to stand near Erun, his voice slightly annoyed in the best way possible. "It gives me joy to hear these things."

"I did not bring my harp from Mithgaear when I came to the city. They told me music was not encouraged here," Rhoswen explained, looking away the way she always did when confronted with something that might shame her.

"Whoever they are, they lied," Boromir announced strongly. "My father has always loved a good song, and my brother as well. Were you speaking of me?" He asked with a leading smile. "When you sang of gently thundering and sweet words?"

"It is an old song, my lord; it speaks of no one in particular."

"Yes, of course, my lord, she sang of you. She sings of no one else now, my sister, when she sings of love," Erun accused. "Do not deny it, Rhoswen," he said, checking her as she laughed. "You are firmly in love with your betrothed."

"Oh, what troubles that will cause," Boromir laughed. "The young men of the city will be heartbroken that ancient old me has the firm affection of his young and wonderful wife. Play another, my Lady Rhoswen."

"What would you have me play, my lord? Something joyful, or dolorous and full of sorrow?"

"Something that will please you in the playing," Boromir said simply. "I am no great judge of music, it need not be complicated or of great merit."

"Play the old lay that Baineth likes so much when you sing it," Erun suggested. "The wind and the valley and the absent beloved. That is a pretty enough tune." There was something in his face that he did not like, Boromir realized, some underhanded purpose. Rhoswen's expression at her brother's suggestion was hard to read, but she adjusted the pegs on her harp and gave several experimental plucks until she remembered the song's key.

"My home lies in the forest green

beside the Wandering Mountain

Beside that place there flows a stream,

and by the stream a fountain.

It's there I sit and wait for word

of my young lover's rally --

The only voice that bears me news

is the wind come through the Valley."

As she began singing, Boromir noticed she did not look at him, did not even look at Erun as she had done before, and her eyes began to well with tears before she had finished the second verse.

"My lover was a high lord's son,

and I a farmer's daughter

Our love you could not tear apart

except by death and slaughter

His king called him away to war

I'll no more with him dally-

The only friend I have in grief

is the wind come through the Valley

Twas hard to hear such awful words

He'll ne'er return to meet me

His hands will never clasp my own

His voice will no more greet me.

So never will I love again,

My soul will never sally;

They carried off my love to him

On the wind come through the Valley

My grief was great, my life was short;

I died alone and keening

They laid me down along his side

within the cold earth's keeping.

So if you chance nearby the stream

Within the Mountain's alley

The only voice you'll hear is mine,

The wind come through the Valley." Rhoswen's voice tapered off quickly, full of unknown fear, the last notes dying away from the harp's strings slower than the singer's voice. The last syllable sounded, Boromir realized, more like a sob than a musical note, cut off short so as not to distress the audience.

"Dolorous indeed. I should have asked for something joyful." Boromir rose and sat down again beside Rhoswen, taking one of her hands in his own. "Hopefully you will never need to sing that song again for me," He whispered to her, feeling her lean a little against him and rest her head on his shoulder. Was that a wetness on her cheek?

"I pray for that every day, my lord," she murmured to him.

There was an awkward silence, and Boromir struggled to find something to break it. "Your hands are cold," He announced with a measure of put-on bluster in his voice. "You should not be out of doors in this wind. Come away, inside, and we will send to the kitchens for hippocras and hot soup. I am famished."

"You rode all the way home from Osgiliath and did not eat before coming to see me?" Rhoswen asked, her own protective air back in her voice.

"Maireth will remedy your ills and mine if I know her right," Boromir said, bundling his heavy fur-lined cloak around Rhoswen's shoulders and shepherding her inside the castle, Erun following both of them as silently as he could, only watching for the time being and so far liking what he saw.

Maireth did remedy all ills when Boromir bustled Rhoswen into her solar, stoking the fire to unimaginable heights and sending to the kitchens for mulled wine. She berated Erun for letting his sister stay outside in her thin cloak and gave Boromir a less-black look than usual when it was suggested he was the one who had gotten her indoors. Rhoswen was protesting that she was not so like a real rose that a touch of frost was lethal to her, but it seemed only her brother heard. Finally the wine and the soup arrived, and all were installed in chairs with steaming goblets or bowls, the room quieting down considerably as the three ate and drank.

"The end of the year approaches. What would you desire of me? In the city, it is the tradition we give gifts for the End-Day. Come now, what shall I get you? A horse?" Boromir offered.

Rhoswen frowned over her goblet, holding in with both hands to warm her fingers. "I have a horse, my lord, I do not need another."

"Something smaller, then. A hound! Or a hawk," Boromir suggested, his eyes lighting up at the thought.

"What need have I for hounds or hawks, my lord? I do not hunt, and neither do you."

"Singing birds for your chamber, or a cat for your hearthstone. Or jewelry, perhaps, that's always favored by a woman, I've heard."

"I have more jewels than I can wear," Rhoswen plead. "I want nothing more for End-Day than to see you home, at table, and by my side. Give me that and I shall be happy enough."

"But it is such a small gift," Boromir said fondly, taking one of her hands in his two. "Surely there is something more that I can give."

"She is an easy woman to please, my sister is," Erun commented wryly. "Thank your stars for that, my lord – my brothers complain daily of the perils of their wives and their never ending desires."

"You are not so very small, my lord," Rhoswen declared tenderly. Boromir chuckled for a moment, and Rhoswen frowned, taken aback. "What have I said, my lord?'

"I was only thinking of what some of my soldiers might say to that. But that is a man's joke, and …not for sharing with a woman's ears," Boromir added, whispering so that Erun might not hear and take offense.

Rhoswen colored, finding his meaning quick enough. "Oh," she said in a small voice, looking away. "And you, my lord? What should I give you?" She asked, her voice distant and her mind occupied with what he might say, the subject of men's jokes.

"Can you make our wedding come sooner?" Boromir asked.

"Alas, my lord, I cannot." _Though if it would make you happy, I think I would,_ she said silently to herself.

"Then I will wait for my desire until the time is right for having it," Boromir said, glancing again at Erun, hoping to avoid a black look. But Rhoswen's brother, it seemed, had his mind elsewhere, and even if he could hear he was letting them have their conversation alone. "Sometimes scars are good teachers, even if they cannot make you feel the lash."

"Why should my scars teach you, lord?" Rhoswen asked, turning away from him and hiding her face in the warmth of the fire, afraid to look at him. Her ankle throbbed with the memory of the cold outside – the healers told her that pain would never go away.

"They remind me that you have often been stronger than me. You have always kept to honor. And I will keep to mine, now. Now is not a time for Larking."

"You must have other business in the city," Rhoswen said quickly, trying to change the subject. "I should not be keeping you from your councils with your father."

"Father has a long patience. He can wait for what he already knows I'll say. I do have business in the Houses. I should see to my men and their recovery. Would you come with? They will be glad to see you with me," Boromir suggested gently, leaning forward in his chair to see around the shadowy back of her head to her face.

The subject of men's jokes, Rhoswen thought to herself again. "I promise there will be no discourtesy if I am there," Boromir said, reading her mind. "It will do them good to see us together. Can I not show you off as my prize of battle?"

"What battle did you win me in, my lord?" Rhoswen asked, the fire still warming her face as she stared at the flames, watching them dance rather than watch her fiancé's eyes.

"The battle with myself," Boromir quipped. "Had I not seen reason we would still not be speaking."

"If you wish it, my lord," Rhoswen said, drawing herself up from her chair. Maireth came to her side without summons with an overrobe, sliding it over her mistress's shoulders like a mother tucking her child safely into bed. "It is not overly cold in the houses, Maireth," Rhoswen reminded over her shoulder, though she made no attempt to take the robe off.

"Better I keep you safe than leave you sorry, lady," Maireth said tenderly. Rhoswen nodded mutely, waiting for Boromir to rise from his chair and offer her his arm.

She imagined it daily when he was away, this simple practice of walking, arm in arm. Wherever she went, he went too, the dreamed-of Boromir, the shadowed substitute that only her mind's eye could see. And now here they were, walking as she imagined they would walk, and it felt…different than it had in her mind. The leather vambraces on his forearms were cold from his ride back to the city – she could feel them radiating off a chill through her sleeve. But when the wind caught her hair and nearly blew away the ribbons Maireth had pinned in, and Boromir caught the ornaments before they went too far, trying with his gloved and clumsy fingers to pin them back in, stroking her hair back into place, she could not help but feel a little warmer inside, a little more sure of herself and this man she was bound to.

In the courtyard before the hallway leading off to the ward where Gondor's healing soliders usually slept Rhoswen had to pause; it was not a room she generally went in, or was told to tend to. _"Necessary men, but rough," Ioreth said. "Leave the young and excitable to old women and other men, my lady."_

"Does this frighten you? This is your terrain, Rose, more than it is mine," Boromir said, seeing that she lingered behind him, eyeing the passageway with a studious eye.

"It is not the … terrain, as you say. Nor is it the men themselves, for I am well used to soldiers and soldiers' ways," Rhoswen ventured, trying not to sound as though she dreaded this.

"What, then?" Boromir asked, trying to maintain some semblance of patience through his vexation.

"It is what they will think of me," Rhoswen admitted, eyeing the doors in trepidation again. "When I walk through those doors on your arm, I cease to be a nurse, a healer, and become something different. I become yours. And with that comes...specific obligations." She was remembering what Bergil said, the first time he had met her. _They did not know if you were a good lady or a bad one, and they hoped you were good, to deserve the Captain Heir…_

"What obligations do you have to them?" Boromir wondered aloud, failing to see any kind of complication here.

"They are your men; they love you. They wish only that the woman you marry treat you as the prince you are. They wonder if I deserve you, if I am good enough, pretty enough for you." _The taunts of other women I can take with good grace. The taunts of men… are something else entirely._

"And you do, my rose, and you are. Come now," Boromir said, taking her smaller hand in his own. "Let us allow the prince to show his troops their princess. What gossips have you been listening to? I hear," Boromir said, leaning in close, "That they think you the most beautiful woman in the world." Well, it had not been exactly like that; it had been more crass, and he had wanted to lash the man who had said it, but the sentiment was there. _Let me not frighten her with truth._ "Let them say you are too beautiful. Let them adore my wonderful wife."

Rhoswen smiled wanly, trying to put on her brave face. "If you insist, my lord."

When Boromir walked into the army's ward the talking slowly stilled, all eyes fixed on the doorway. Those men who could stand did, and bowed in salute as their commander walked by. Boromir paused at several bedsides, conversing easily with the men as Rhoswen watched, feeling like a stranger in a place where she should have felt most at home. Boromir was a soldier, her brothers were soldiers. Yet why did she feel…alone? Was it because she was now the only woman among men she did not know? Or was it because she could see the men's eyes following her without the familiar frame of their helmets to limit their vision. They were at their most vulnerable here in the Houses of Healing, but so, it seemed, was she.

Boromir was in a deeper conversation than Rhoswen could readily follow along with, and her mind wandered, eyes shifting among the beds in the ward. She left his shadow, quietly moving away from the knot of men in the middle of the ward to move along its fringes, glancing at the patients here who had not already seen their commander. Some were watching Boromir, but others, on further observation, were too far away in their own thoughts to pay the Captain-Heir's speeches any heed.

One of these men caught her eye, a man about her eldest brother's age, his arm in a sling. His eyes were fixed at the end of his cot, and despite the sling which should have held his arm without any help, he was holding the limb as if it pained him.

"You have broken your arm, I see," Rhoswen said, feeling greetings and pleasantries had little place here.

"An arrow, my lady," the soldier said, sitting up a little in bed as he saw he was the object of his commander's lady's attention.

"Does it pain you?" she asked experimentally, and the man looked at her, surprised that she should seemingly read his thoughts with such ease. "You hold it strangely," she explained, sitting down on the edge of the man's cot and offering her hands to receive the arm. "May I?"

Bewildered, he did as he was bid and held out his arm. Delicately she drew back the sling and felt the dressing and the wrappings underneath – hard with old blood and whatever herbs had been put on it. "When was this last changed?" she asked, rolling back the bandages to inspect the poultice on the wound. She could almost feel Ioreth at her shoulder, inspecting her as she inspected the patient. But this was nothing new, she had seen this, done this before, and the poultice was a recipe she knew from Anfalas, to keep the wound clean and the scarring neat. She could reapply it, there was no trouble in that.

"A week past, lady, but you need not trouble," the soldier said as Rhoswen rose from the cot, Boromir and the purpose of her visit forgotten. To the storeroom she went, selecting the herbs and grinding them anew, then soaking the mixture in a thin cloth to begin the poultice.

"Comfrey to knit the bone again, yarrow to keep it clean and without bad humors," she explained, showing the contents of the cloth to her patient. "Thyme, also to keep it clean, and rosemary, to ward away ungentle smells. The wound is healing well, and after this the dressing should probably not be changed again. I have added oil of clove, as well – it will deaden the skin, so you will not have as much pain now, we hope." Gently Rhoswen packed the mix against the skin and began wrapping the wound again, careful to keep the splints around the man's arm in place so the bone would knit straight.

"I wondered why it smelled of home," the man said. "My wife loves the smell of rosemary."

"Where is your wife now?" Rhoswen asked, trying to keep her binding close and tight.

"At home, in our house on the second level of the city, Lady, with our daughter. She is but three," the man said fondly. "I have not seen her in six months – she should be walking by now."

"Do they not come and visit you?" inquired the lady, her hands firm around the still-setting arm and the bruised flesh that held it together.

"Is it permitted?" The soldier asked. Rhoswen nodded.

"Indeed, it is encouraged, if it can be managed!" she said with a thin smile. "Medicine we can provide, but a family's laughter is better for some wounds than what we provide."

"Does the lady Rhoswen bother you, Gaelon?" Boromir asked from behind them, and Rhoswen, remembering anew why she was here, blushed a little in shame.

"No, my lord. She has promised to bring my wife and child to visit me, my lord," the man, Gaelon, said happily.

"Is that so?" Boromir asked, looking at Rhoswen, a little amused.

"If they do not live so far away why should they not come and see him?" Rhoswen said, gesturing as if this should be the most obvious thing in the world. "He will return to battle soon enough," she added quietly, looking up at Boromir with the face that said she dared him to challenge her.

She thought he might take it badly – instead, the Captain-Heir laughed. "Fair of face _and _wise of council," Boromir said. "That is why I must marry her quickly."

The men within earshot laughed, and Rhoswen smiled a little wider, blushing a little more for a different reason. The subject of men's jokes hadoccurred to her again.

Boromir concluded his visits soon after that, bidding the men farewell as Rhoswen waited near the doors, contemplating something that seemed, by her expression, very serious. "Is there not something I can do here for you, my lord?" she finally asked when they were beyond the ward's doors again, out of earshot and eyesight of the men.

"What?" Boromir asked, turning to her in confusion.

"These men, they are under your charge and have given greatly of themselves because they love their city and their captain. Cannot I be a help to them here, and look after them when you cannot?"

"Do you really wish to do that?" Boromir asked, surprised. He leaned closer, pitching his voice so soft that Rhoswen had to strain to hear it. "I know what it is you are trying to do and I am telling you, you need not do it if it discomforts you."

Rhoswen took a deep breath. "I think I must learn to… take a little discomfort, my lord. Besides," she elaborated with a little shrug, "It is a…a wife's duty to take care of her husband's estate while he is away. Are they not your estate?"

The captain-heir nodded. "You should not be alone with them; Maireth …or one of the other healers should be with you," Boromir said. "I trust them… _enough_ when I am about."

_It is moments like that when I love him even more,_ Rhoswen thought as she tried to tame the wisp of smile sneaking into her face. _That behind that soldier is someone who worries._

_He would not have to worry if you did not endanger yourself so, _Reason bit back. _They have no need for you in the care of soldiers._

_There will be danger enough wherever I go, _Rhoswen told herself_. At least that much I have learned since being here in the White City._

Today's update is brought to you by my aching head and the letter O. Song lyrics courtesy of John Dowland (Ye Old Tudor Records Label) and a Mercury Gray Original with tune borrowed from The Wind That Shakes The Barley. No real bones were broken in the making of this fic.

Oh, and for whoever fangirled on Erun in their review last chapter, he sends his kind regards and wants you to know that he also has three older brothers, if you've got friends in the neighborhood.

As you might have noticed, I'm in a kind of strange mood today. Happy Monday!


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

* * *

Now winter nights enlarge

This number of their hours;

And clouds their storms

Discharge upon the airy towers.

Let now the chimneys blaze

And cups o'erflow with wine,

Let well-tuned words amaze

With harmony divine.  
Now yellow waxen lights

Shall wait on honey love

While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights

Sleep's leaden spells remove.

-"Now Winter Nights Enlarge," Thomas Campion

* * *

Shouts and laughter were no way to start a winter's morning, Rhoswen thought to herself, turning over in bed and shutting her eyes tightly, trying to muster up the will to get out of bed. The sun was low in the sky, but out in the corridor someone was wide awake, and adamant that the rest of the castle should know so. "Kings and lords must now give way! Lords of Misrule rule the day!"

Suddenly there was a hammering of tiny fists on the door, and the piping voices of the city boys shouting for the occupants to "Open, in the name of the Lord of Misrule!"

_We have such customs in Anfalas, but surely they are not so early_, Rhoswen told herself with a weary smile, having been warned several days previous about what was to happen today, the last day of the old year. She climbed out of bed, slipping her feet into bedshoes and shuffling towards the door as Maireth turned over, shaking sleep from her eyes to peer through the darkness towards her mistress. Rhoswen drew the bolt back, pretending surprise as she was met with a prickle of practice swords and wooden daggers, brightly painted and held menacingly by the troupe of boys outside her door. "Good heavens, what is this?" she asked, feigning alarm.

"We've come to take you captive, Lady Rhoswen!" one of the younger boys announced, getting a sharp elbow in his rib for his troubles. "Idiot, we're not s'posed to tell her that!" she thought she heard one say.

"Captive! Oh, me, whatever shall I do? I've never been taken captive before," Rhoswen admitted, in that bright voice one always uses around young children. "Should I shout loudly?"

"No!" chorused all the boys. "You'd wake the guards up!" the very talkative younger one who had spoken up earlier said.

"But I daresay it will be much more impressive if you can say you took me by force from a lot of armed guards," Rhoswen reminded them. There was nodding among the boys. Rhoswen turned around and let her best damsel in distress voice echo back into her room. "Help, help, Maireth! We are under attack by the fierce knights of the Lord of Misrule! Whatever shall we do?"

"You'll put something on before you go out into the rest of the Steward's house, first," Maireth announced grumpily. "Shame on you young boys, thinking of taking a lady out in her nightdress. Gentlemen and knights would know better."

The boys shrank back, a little cowed by the matronly Maireth, and they waited quietly at the door while the maidservant helped Rhoswen into a bed jacket, a heavy overrobe of dark blue velvet lined at the sleeves with rabbit's fur. Now at least a little more decent, Rhoswen was sent on her way with the raucous troupe of boys to be lead to the Great Hall, where several other captives were waiting, guarded by the older squires who could still be persuaded to get out of bed early and the very youngest of the boys, those who were not old enough to know exactly what went on at End-Year. Some of the hostages had not been as fortunate as Rhoswen when they were dragged from their beds – Serawen, Rhoswen chuckled inwardly to note, was standing in the hall in a very creased night dress with a shawl thrown over her shoulders. Her betrothed would probably be the one to ransom her; Hirluin of Pinnath Gelin was in the city for end year, she knew, though Rhoswen had not seen him yet.

But however poorly they had been woken, the boys knew how to treat their hostages. Breakfast was broken out, buns and sweetcakes and ale and some of the leftovers from the dinner before. And slowly, those family members who had found red ribbons tied to their doors would be coming down to the Great Hall to ransom back their loved ones for gifts and trinkets for the boys.

Faramir came down to the great hall well before his brother, and looking a great deal more awake than some of the other family members there. "I have roused him, lady," he promised Rhoswen. "He will here as soon as he's found himself fit to be seen."

"I do not doubt he will come in haste," Rhoswen said with a smile. Faramir chuckled.

"Thank heavens he did not come in too much haste – when I told him you had been taken captive he nearly jumped out of bed to rescue you." Faramir leaned closer, whispering. "And he was in no fit state to be seen by anyone else, lady."

Rhoswen blushed a little to consider what that would mean.

No one would say the pages and squires had not been through; no noble family was spared ransom. Arthion's wife had been taken by their son, a boisterous lad among the older boys almost too old for such games. The Lord Hurin, Keeper of the Keys, had also come, ready to retrieve his daughter.

The Ransoming began one captive at a time, the boys shouting the name to the assembled guests and the hastily roused family members coming forward reading for the bargaining table. Rhoswen was paying little attention to the other captives – she had found Faeldes, waiting in the edge of the crowd to ransom back her daughters from a cousin of theirs (her own son was too young yet to participate) and they discussed instead of paying all the attention to it they should have.

Slowly the room emptied – the families and some of the boys left, until Rhoswen was one of the only captives left in the hall. Her name was shouted by a curiously young sounding Bergil, and Boromir stepped out of the crowd, a bemused smile on his face. He looked very princely, Rhoswen thought to herself, remembering that she was still in her overrobe and nightgown. Faramir had said that his brother had rushed to her salvation when he heard of it – what had made him pause before a mirror and rustle the hair out of his face, and make sure that the deep blue surcoat he wore hung just the right way to make him seem so much taller, so much more…noble?

"Ah, now, we save the deepest pockets for nigh near last. Well, Master Misrule, what do you want for my bonny bride?" Boromir asked, standing with his hands crossed and that slight smile on his face as he faced down Bergil.

"A new dagger, from the Tower Armory, with a belt to match it, and a scabbard!" Bergil said decidedly. "A sword, a sword, you should have said a sword!" the other boys goaded.

The Captain Heir smiled and glanced at Rhoswen. "Such gifts are costly, master Misrule, but the Lady Rhoswen is a princely prize. Do you want aught else for her?"

"I want a favor from the lady, that I can wear and be her champion, since I'm the one that got her this morning!" Bergil announced. The rest of the waiting courtiers gasped nearly silently, whispering among themselves that this was highly irregular. "And a kiss," he added, glancing at Rhoswen with a childish glimmer in his eyes. _What songs have they been teaching him?_ Rhoswen wondered. _No boy-child would ask for a kiss like that. _

Boromir struck his chest as if he had been hit with an invisible arrow. "Master Misrule, do you intend to beggar me? Her kisses are too precious to me to give up one so lightly to another man. Ask for something else. I cannot pay that hostage price."

"My lord," Rhoswen put in, "Is it not my right to give my kisses when I will? There will be plenty left for you when I am done. Come here, Bergil, and take this ribbon, and your kiss." She unknotted the ribbon at the end of her hastily-finished braid and held it out as a lady in a poem might hold her favor out to her favorite knight.

Surprised at what his own boldness had netted him, Bergil hesitated, finally scampering forward and taking the ribbon, looking up at Rhoswen in trepidation. His expression made Rhoswen laugh, and she knelt down, kissing Bergil on the cheek as a mother kisses her child before sending him off to bed. "Arise, little champion. Your lady bids you go and make your merriment. Although you should know," she added, trying to make him feel a little less self-concious about the whole business, "that not even Boromir has a favor like that from me. You should be very honored."

This seemed to help, and Bergil skipped back to his group of boys with a proud note in his step, leaving Boromir to offer Rhoswen his arm and lead her away from 'captivity' back upstairs to prepare for the rest of the day's merriments.

"That was bold of him, to ask for such a thing. Boys of that age seldom like to think of girls as more than a foreign breed. I should know, I was one of them once," the Captain-Heir added wryly.

"It was bold of you to deny him," Rhoswen countered.

"While we are speaking of boldness, Lady, I shall say nothing of your brazen speech of kisses while you stood in your nightdress with your hair unbound and wild. Yes, don't think I hadn't noticed," Boromir added, turning away ruefully. Rhoswen laughed, and he turned back, frowning a little through his smile. "You blush, but yet you still smile. Why is that?"

"Sometimes it gives a woman pleasure, to know she is admired by men."

"And these same women run away when men speaking of pleasing beyond the eyes?" Boromir scoffed. Rhoswen quickly turned her face away, and he could see her cheeks were burning hot. "Forgive me, that was cruel of me."

Rhoswen pursed her lips, trying to think of what to say. "It was true, cruel or not. We are confusing creatures. But then, we are also confused ourselves. Taught to allure, but not let ourselves be lured. To occupy ourselves, but not beyond the limits of ornament. To feel and love, but not deep enough to know the meaning of the word. To seduce, but not allow fruit to the seduction to blossom."

_She's thought about this a great deal_. "Do I lure you?" Boromir asked, suddenly full of curiosity. _No one before told me women thought the same way men do._

_In the worst way, my lord, _Rhoswen thought to herself, mindful that he could not see her face to know that she frowned and looked afraid._ That is why I turn away and hate myself. Would you look on me so lovingly when you see inside my mind?_ "I am not without my weaknesses. Something in my heart thinks this would be easier, if I were to give you what you want."

"And something of my heart knows that it would not be…easier. Only more dangerous."

They said no more after that, each thinking the same thing, thinking if the worst should happen when Rhoswen was heavy with child her baby would be bastard born, and never to know a father. The silence between them was a brittle thing.

"Is it strange for you, to think of when we will be married?" Boromir wondered aloud.

"A little. But I have always known I would be married. To whom, I never knew. But I could not imagine a better man," Rhoswen said loyally, glancing at her betrothed.

"Oh, you know so little of me, Rhoswen, to think I am a good man. I look at this hair of yours and see it spread across a pillow." He paused in the hallway, wrapping a dark tendril of her fast- unbraiding hair around his finger. _I look at that nightdress and imagine taking it off, when I am alone in my bed at night. Yes, this will haunt me when I am in Osgiliath with only stars for bedmates. Men are never good enough for the women who love them._

Rhoswen looked at her braid and tried quickly to bind it up, forgetting that the ribbon that had held it together was gone. "If it is tempting, let me do away with it!" she offered, the gesture warming Boromir's smile. How helpful she tried to be!

"Leave it be. Let me look at it a little while longer. It will do no great damage before its time." He left the lock to fall back to her shoulder, and they continued upstairs.

"So, my lord," Rhoswen asked once they were free of the crowds in the banqueting hall and once again in the more private part of the Steward's house, " What will you do with your damsel now that you have rescued her?"

"Well," Boromir said, "It has been our custom, Faramir and I, to spend the day playing games until our family dinner, in the evening, and to give our gifts. It was father's custom, too, when we were younger," the captain heir remembered with a bitter taste in his mouth. "He has since given up the practice."

"In Anfalas for the Midwinter we would have a large family dinner as well," Rhoswen added. "My brothers and their households would come home, to Mithgaear, and share the meal, and light the candles at midnight."

Boromir laughed. "There are no family dinners here, I am afraid, Rose, only state functions with family present. It will be a feast, not a cozy celebration like you are used to. But there will be singing, and wassail, and good cheer, if we can manage to keep Father sedate enough," he put in, pleased that the joke brought a smile to Rhoswen's face. "So, will you join Faramir and I for a game of chess?"

"I do not know, my lord, if being alone in your apartments…" Rhoswen began, her face falling as the full implications of her betrothed's invitation became clear to her.

"I have taken the liberty of already inviting your brother," Boromir offered. "And you…you need not come if you are…unwell in the idea."

"I should change my gown," Rhoswen said quickly.

"But of course," Boromir said, having forgotten that while he was dressed, Rhoswen was still in her nightgown. They finished the walk upstairs, Boromir waiting outside the door while Maireth bustled around behind it, making her mistress ready for the day. When she emerged again, hair bound back as was proper for her under a set of starry silver combs, Boromir had to smile; her dress, while a deep green that might have made some wonder at her adherence to city style, was embroidered with a nearly invisible lattice of leaves and flowers. The color spoke of evergreen trees and wintertime, a season the city loved for its gravitas – the pattern spoke of spring and Rhoswen's gardens.

"Can you ever dress poorly?" he wondered aloud, taking her hand and kissing her lightly on the cheek.

"You are a biased observer, my lord," Rhoswen submitted gently, taking his hand and following him to his apartments.

Faramir and his two guests stood as Rhoswen and Boromir entered, the younger brother bowing to Boromir and his betrothed in a courtly style Rhoswen seldom saw in the Steward's Halls. Erun she recoginized as one, but the other she could not see."My lady, I have taken the liberty of inviting another to our little gathering. I think you and he may already have an acquaintance," Faramir offered, leading Rhoswen around the gaming table to introduce the third man, who had been sitting with his back to the door when they had arrived. Boromir did not recognize the tall, dark haired stranger, but evidently Rhoswen did, for her face lit up into a wide smile and she opened her arms to him.

"Lord Hirluin!" she exclaimed, greeting the lord (of Pinnath Gelin, now Boromir remembered) with the embrace due to a brother, or a very close family friend. "I did not remember you would be in the city! This is a pleasure I did not expect!"

"When I had heard you had left Anfalas to marry into the House of Hurin, I did not think much of the news, Lady. Now I see the other side of my mountains has lost a rare jewel to the end of the Ered Nimrais," Hirluin exclaimed, his blue eyes twinkling with the look of a man who dearly enjoys making others laugh. The Fair, that was what they called him. Hirluin the Fair. He was the sort of man that women liked to look on, Boromir thought, touching the stubble of his own beard as he pondered Hirluin's Numenorean good looks and smooth, clean-shaven cheeks. Had there been a time when Rhoswen had turned her thoughts to him? "I think it has been more years than I remember since I saw you," Hirluin was saying. "It is not fair, Erun," he said, turning to Rhoswen's brother. "These lords of the east are taking all our women."

"And you are taking back some of ours, do not forget," Faramir reminded diplomatically. Hirluin smiled and shrugged.

"I suppose that is true! The Lady Serawen is no mean prize to give up to the mists and the mountains, I suppose."

"I heard she was a prisoner of the Lords of Misrule this morning," Boromir put in. "Pray tell, what did you pay to ransom her?"

"She was affronted it was only a wooden shield, but I would have paid more if it were asked of me. I hear that you yourself did not go cheaply, either, Lady Rhoswen," Hirluin said, his eyes sparkling as he smiled at Rhoswen. "Alas, my own prisoner drew me away before I could see your own ransoming."

"If I had known it would have caused such a stir I would not have come with them," Rhoswen admitted.

"An Armory dagger and scabbard are a price I am well willing to pay and pay again for Rhoswen. But the kiss wounded more than I want to say," Boromir said, catching Rhoswen's gaze and affecting to be hurt deeply by the morning's events.

"The boy asked for a kiss?" Hirluin asked, surprised and very much amused.

"He is a friend of mine," Rhoswen explained. "I think it was a dare from an older boy, to tell the truth."

"And did you give him one?" Hirluin queried again. Rhoswen nodded and shrugged, and the Lord of Pinnath Gelin laughed.

"I shall have to meet this bold little cavalier!" he exclaimed.

"When I meet him again I shall surely have the bettering of him," Boromir said sourly. "He nearly made a cuckold of me, and we not even wed yet."

"Come, my lord, shall I pay you back again?" Rhoswen asked, looking up at Boromir, Hirluin's high spirits and all four men's smiles making her bold.

"What kind of question is that?" Boromir asked, sliding his arm around her waist to pull her close for yet another kiss, sourness forgotten.

"Now, now, brother," Faramir cut in amid the laughter of the others. "Take care you do not take all her kisses now, else there will be none left to ransom her from other foes."

Boromir rolled his eyes and smiled wider, giving Rhoswen one final peck on her nose before letting go of their embrace so she might sit down beside the game board.

"I think it is an amusing custom," Erun said, sitting back down to the game at hand. "The children get their gifts, the household is turned topsy turvy for an hour or so and the slugabeds may go back to sleep if they wish when it is over. Children need their games."

"As do men, it seems," Rhoswen said, looking at the board, a strange configuration of three concentric squares with paths in between them, as if they were linked roads through a city. "I confess I do not know this one."

"Shall I teach you?" Boromir said, wrapping his arm around her waist again and leaning closer to her. "It is called merels, or morris, if you are among the men of Rohan. The idea is to leave none of your opponent's men on the board."

Erun laughed. "Boromir lies, sister, it is a bit more complicated than that. Faramir has been trying to teach me all morning and I still have not managed to discern a way to set the pieces so a man may win!"

"Then I shall watch, and you will explain as we go along, and then I shall try playing it. If you will let me," she added.

Faramir nodded. "Of course, lady."

The object, as Erun had said, was to remove all the pieces, but the game was further complicated by having to lay the pieces down and then move them along the paths. Three pieces in a row could not be touched, and by moving a piece in and out of these rows of three one could take his opponent's piece off the board. Erun fared badly, with Faramir easily winning all of the six or seven games they played while Rhoswen tried to riddle out the rules, which seemed like they should not have been difficult but were hard to put into practice. After two games she lost easily to Faramir and one game she nearly won against her brother, the merels board was put away and the chessboard, with its ebony and ivory armies, produced to the relief of Erun (who was getting tired of losing so handily) and the amusement of Rhoswen, who insisted on inspecting every piece before relinquishing them to their places on the board.

"Why do you study them so?" Boromir asked, stealing the last of the pawns and setting it on the board so Hirluin could make his opening move.

"Chess sets amuse me – I have yet to see two alike. Father's chess set at home has archers for the pawns, while yours are footsoldiers. My brother Carnil has a set where all the pieces are animals. They are as independent as the people who own them," Rhoswen explained.

"My grandfather," Hirluin offered as his fingers lingered over one of his pawns, deciding something, "had a set where the pawns were waves and the rest of the pieces ships. Made in Dol Amroth, I believe. It was a piece of art I do not thing any craftsman in the city could now replicate. The secret of such fine carving was lost long ago." Satisfied with his decision on the pawns, he sat back in his seat, surveying the board as Boromir took his turn.

"Perhaps I should have a new set made in honor of my marriage, with Rhoswen for the queen," the Captain-heir mused. "Holding roses in her hands. Faramir and Uncle Iorlas for councilors, Citadel guards for pawns…it would be quite a set."

"That it would, brother," Faramir said, lingering near his sibling's shoulder. _And you would be the king of that board, I think…and what would happen when the king comes again?_ He wondered to himself.

--

It was an afternoon without incident – food was brought for the midday repast, and Hirluin made a gift of some vaunted vintage of wine to Boromir to accompany the meal. "For letting him win," the Captain-Heir whispered none too secretly to Rhoswen. The young woman laughed and rose from where she had been sitting on the couch next to Boromir, conscious of his lingering touch against her side as his hand fell away from her hip. _Why does it please me to have him touch me when I know it should not?_

"Are my brother's hands cold?" Faramir asked, his back to the others and his voice low, the posture of a man intent on keeping his secrets to himself. "You pull away from him strangely."

"I forgave him, Faramir," Rhoswen said levelly, pouring out the wine into the five glasses on the tray. "I did not forget what he did."

"So you have learned caution, then. That is good," Faramir commented, relieving the tray of one of the glasses and sipping moderately.

"Caution?" Rhoswen scoffed and busied herself with the sweetmeats, fidgeting with them on their plate. "Is it cautious for me to appear un-chaperoned with four men in a closed room?"

"One of those men is a close family friend, one your brother…and one the man you will marry. I would not say that is overly un-cautious. The only one you should fear here is…me," Faramir suggested, shrugging a little as Rhoswen looked up at him, her gaze intent.

"You speak to me of _caution_, Faramir. I doubt I should fear you."

"What do you speak of over there, you two?" Boromir asked from the chess board beyond, and Faramir turned around, his congenial grin back on his face as though he had not been speaking of any matter more dire than the state of the wine, or the lack of pastries.

"We are plotting, brother, to make you lose your next game very badly," the younger brother joked. "Rhoswen will distract you and in the meanwhile I will play exceedingly well."

"It would not take much to win that game," Boromir joked.

"Who speaks of plots?" a familiar voice asked from the doorway, and when they saw who it was, the three men struggled to stand quick enough for protocol.

"Father," Boromir said in way of greeting, while Erun and Hirluin made their bows, dutifully murmuring "My Lord," in almost-unison.

"It was a joke, my lord," Faramir said, watching his father's gaze turn to him, the beginnings of a frown tugging at the corners of the elder man's mouth.

"I only spoke in jest, my lord, about plotting to win a chess game," Rhoswen interceded quickly, attuned enough to her future father-in-laws moods that she knew what might spoil the party. "Faramir offered to aid me in my endeavor; I am a poor player myself but would hate to lose easily against my betrothed." Denethor's frown dissipated, replaced by something almost like a smile. "Will you not take some wine with us, my lord, in the spirit of the day?" Rhoswen pressed on, eager to see the good cheer return to the apartment, which had turned cold with dread when Denethor walked in.

The steward hesitated, and after some deliberation took the glass Rhoswen offered him off the tray, smiling a little and raising it in silent toast. "Your sister is a rare treasure, Lord Erun – a child who knows her duty," he said, and Rhoswen bobbed a curtsey, her skin as cold as ice.

The Steward took a sip from the glass, tasting it with a doubtless discerning tongue. "This is good wine, son," he said to Boromir. "A little too fine for your apartments, I should think."

"It was a gift, Father, from Lord Hirluin," Boromir said, nodding to the lord of Pinnath Gelin, who stood by, wordlessly observing the scene.

"Hirluin of Pinnath Gelin?" Denethor asked. "Your father was Hirmith, I think. You have his look."

"Yes, sir," Hirluin replied. "Often it has been said so."

"What business brings you to the city? Surely I did not send for you!" Denethor blustered.

"Lord Hirluin is to marry Lady Serawen in some months' time," Rhoswen reminded, wondering why Denethor had forgotten that. "He is a friend from childhood, and he sought to see me here as well, and bring my family's best wishes to me."

Denethor nodded again, trying to make his comments seem distracted enough, the words of a ruler who disdains such trivial matters. _But they are not trivial to him_, Rhoswen mused. _Does he truly not remember why Hirluin is here?_ "We will see all of you for dinner, I expect," the lord of Minas Tirith asked, looking hawkishly at both his sons. "And promptly," he added, fixing both of his boys with an imperious gaze.

"Of course, father," Boromir said.

"I will make sure they attend the clock diligently," Rhoswen promised, smiling for a little bit of levity in the room. Denethor ignored it and nodded solemnly, sweeping out and letting a groom close the door heavily behind him. When he was gone, Boromir let loose a sigh, as if he'd been holding in his breath for the whole interview, and the five young people laughed a little.

"I suppose we should give our gifts now," Faramir said, "if father fears we are going to be late."

"In that case, gentlemen," Hirluin said, rising from his chair, "I take my leave of you. Lady," he said, addressing Rhoswen, " It has been an honor and a pleasure. I am glad you have some joy here, and good people about you."

"I am glad you are here to be one of them," Rhoswen said, curtseying. "Give my good greetings to your own Lady," she added, though she really did not mean it. She was becoming adept at saying things she did not mean, it seemed. Hirluin nodded, bowing out gracefully.

"Let us have Rhoswen open her present first," Faramir said nobly. "It is always the youngest who goes first, and she is both the youngest here and the youngest member let into the family."

It was a heavy package, a large bulk wrapped in thin muslin and tied with ribbon. Rhoswen drew her breath back as she unfolded the garment inside, a beautiful purple-red cloak in a soft, heavy fabric she could not name, lined on the inside with thick, luxurious fur. The color was deep and rich, and around the edge, in gray and crimson threads, were embroidered a veritable rose bower of blooms. It nearly took her breath away. "I have never seen anything so rich, my lord! This is a cloak for queens!"

"Queens would wear ermine," Boromir corrected. "My father taught me that. But this is sable, and fit at least for princesses, which, my darling, you will be soon enough," he added quietly in her ear.

Rhoswen turned to him, the cloak in her hands, smiling. "What did you call me?"

"My darling. Shall I say it again, if you have gone deaf all of a sudden? Look further into the package, there should yet be something else in there for you to wonder over." Boromir sat back and watched with pleasure as Rhoswen rustled through the folds of the cloak, finally drawing out a long, thin hair comb, the kind usually used to bind a lady's hair back rather than remove the knots. The piece was made of ivory, and as she turned it over, the head of the comb, fashioned like the crest of a wave, caught the light and made it dance.

Erun, at least, had the sense to make some small noise of appreciation. "That, my lord, is a princely gift," he said, borrowing it from his sister to examine it for a moment.

"It was my mother's," Boromir said. "That is pearl, I believe, in the wave. There are two more in the package, though doubtless they have fallen to the bottom. Forgive your betrothed for gifting you with what you did not want – I know you said you wished for no more jewels."

"A comb is hardly a necklace or bracelet, my lord – it is infinitely more useful. Thank you – they are lovely," Rhoswen said, slipping the comb back into the cloak and bundling it up again.

"I should add I was not alone in picking them. Maireth had her fair hand in it – it was she who advised me of the combs."

"But…if they were your mother's…surely your father will…"

"Leave father and his anger to me. They will be your caskets soon enough when we marry. I should be allowed to give my mother's things to you. She had no daughters; she would have liked them to be used, I think. Now Erun!" Boromir exclaimed, rising from his seat to fetch another package. "You will have to forgive us; we did not quite know what to get you!"

The sun was gone when the gong sounded for dinner and the four gathered descended to the Hall for the dinner. Boromir and Rhoswen followed Denethor's black-clad stateliness up to the high table, sitting down in the places prepared for them almost as if they were officiating the feast themselves. The hall was filled fuller than usual, with extra tables laid for the guests like Lord Hirluin who were only in the city for the End-Year celebration, who did not often make a habit of attending court. Each came to pay their respects to Denethor, bowing before the high table in renewal of the ancient oaths their families had taken in the times long before the House of Hurin had kept this house and these tables.

Denethor gave no speech and directed no blessing, simply gestured for the servitors to begin passing around the hall with their heavily laden trays. The talk rose to a boisterous hum and the mood settled into a cozy, festive feeling rather easily. Even the steward, it seemed, was far away from the grim, dreary man he had been earlier. Far away in a corner gallery, a handful of musicians accompanied the meal. Several lords came forward to discuss matters of one sort or another with either father or son, and Rhoswen attended each conversation with silence and diligence, trying to remember the details in case it should come to be discussed later. _This is what your duty will be at this time next year,_ she reminded herself when she caught herself yawning, _and a thousand other feasts after that._

The wine flowed freely, and the volume of the hall rose, the laughter becoming more frequent. Smiles widened, and the music picked up pace a little. The Steward, meanwhile, was attacking the dish in front of him with particular relish, savoring each bite as thought it held some especial meaning or magnificence. "It has been many years since I have tasted such a fish!" he exclaimed, gesturing for the servitor to fork more of the tender flesh onto his plate. "Salmon, is it?"

"Yes, my lord," Rhoswen offered from down the table. "Cooked in ginger and white wine."

"Father, you hate fish," Boromir countered from his father's right, scoffing a little and taking another sip of his wine.

"Nonsense, I love fish," Denethor declared, far too jolly to be completely sober. " Once, when I was in Dol Amroth, they served a carp at your uncle's table that could have fed an army, it was so large. And tender, too! Finduilas thought it was so funny that I had never seen a fish that size before. How she laughed at me," the steward remembered, chuckling as he shoveled another bite of the gingered salmon onto his fork. "She had such a wonderful laugh. I can...almost hear her laughing now..." He trailed off, the smile falling and his fork slipping a little, clattering to his plate.

"Father, is something wrong?" Faramir asked, leaning in from his father's left and gently touching Denethor's sleeve, trying to be subtle. Rhoswen, too, was in shock; Denethor _never_ discussed Finduilas. His father waved Faramir away.

"I'm fine, Faramir, fine! Cannot your old father be merry? A song, a song! We must have a song! Have we no men here who may sing for thier lord's pleasure, or ladies to do likewise?" He asked, looking around the hall -- the musicians ended ungracefully and the guests looked around, each at his neighbor, looking confused and just a little frightened.

"He is drunk," Faramir whispered to Boromir. "He should go rest."

But his brother, it seemed, was not listening. "Let Rhoswen sing, Father," Boromir suggested, looking like he had drunk a few more gobletfuls than might have been healthy. "She has a strong voice, and a harp besides."

"Spendid!" Denethor exclaimed. "Send for the lady's harp, and then we will have a song! Go on!" He waved away one of the squires serving at the table, who gave a glance at the Lady before he scampered off. "What shall you sing for us, Lady Rhoswen, whilst we are waiting? Tempt us with the story of the song."

All eyes were on her, and Rhoswen's skin felt warm. "There are songs we sing at Midwinter, my lord, but they are poor sport for a single voice," she managed. "And there are none among the company who would know them..." Was that a suitable excuse?

"Lord Erun shall sing with you. Brother and sister!" Denethor exclaimed, delighting in his little game. "Where is the lady's brother? Is he not here?"

"I am here, my lord, and ready to sing, if you require it," Erun said, rising from his seat to stand by his sister's chair, laying a hand on Rhoswen's shoulder, patting it softly as if to assure his little sister that he would help her. "We do not sing overmuch in Anfalas but at the midwinter, and I know the songs well enough."

"And what shall you sing?" Denethor asked merrily.

Rhoswen looked up at her brother, the two of them conferring almost silently. "There is the Pastime..."

"I know not all the words."

"Join Hands? But that is more dance than song."

"The Hunter?"

"Can it be done with two?"

"If it is required..."

"We will sing, my lord," Erun offered, "a song that is very old in Anfalas. It speaks of the hunt that would take place in midwinter." Then, softer, "Shall we, sister?"

Rhoswen smiled briefly, sitting up a little straighter and taking a few deep breaths, trying to remember the words to this song she had been singing since childhood. The words were remembered unbidden, more instinct than anything else, acquired and honed by years of practice.

"Blow thy horn, o hunter, and blow thy horn on high

there is a doe in yonder wood; in faith she will not die

Now blow thy horn, hunter, and blow thy horn jolly hunter

So this deer stricken is and yet she bleeds no whit

she layeth where I could not miss and I was glad of it

Now blow thy horn, hunter, and blow thy horn jolly hunter

There she go'th! See ye not, how she go'th over the plain?  
And if ye lust to have a shot, I warrant her barrain.  
Now blow thy horn, hunter, and blow thy horn jolly hunter

He to go and I to go, but he ran fast afore;  
I bade him shoot and strike the doe, for I might shoot no more.  
Now blow thy horn, hunter, and blow thy horn jolly hunter

Here I leave and make an end now of this hunter's lore:  
I think his bow is well unbent, his bolt may flee no more.  
Now blow thy horn, hunter, and blow thy horn jolly hunter..."

"Excellent, excellently well sung indeed! My son does not lie when he says you have an excellent voice, my dear," Denethor said, patting Rhoswen's hand in a fatherly fashion, still excellently pleased with himself.

"Perhaps my lord's musicians would be better suited to entertain you more, my lord; my voice is in poor health of late and I could not sing again," Rhoswen said softly, coughing delicately. She wasn't sure whether her face was red with shame for herself at having been asked to sing in front of all these nobles or for Denethor for being so unlike himself.

"Of course, of course, my dear," Denethor said, all fatherly condescension again. "We cannot have you sickly now, not with this cold weather."

"Long has it been since men had time enough to hunt for sport alone in Minas Tirith. The townlands are wide and the beasts in the Kingswood few," Faramir said to no one in particular, reaching forward for the wine pitcher and moving it out of his father's reach, giving the servitor a look that he hoped said he should give the Steward no more wine.

"Once it was that the lord's household hunted boar for the Midwinter feast. But it is many generations since the woods of Anfalas held a creature large enough to feed the lord's house," Erun said, turning back to his own seat.

"It is many generations since we saw anything worthy of song in Minas Tirith," Faramir mused softly to himself. "Will we ever see such days again?"

It seemed Denethor's need for songs was satisfied; He settled back into his meal and Rhoswen excused herself from the high table, declaring that she had a head-ache and would go to bed. Neither her brother nor either younger Hurin escorted her out, though it looked as though it hurt Faramir to see her go in such a manner. And it seemed he was still disturbed when he brought Boromir back to their shared rooms several hours later when the candles had burned down low enough and the rest of the company had either trundled back to their rooms or lulled themselves to sleep in the hall itself.

"Singing in front of the hall like a common strumpet," Faramir was fuming. "And you, encouraging father to let her! You should not have said anything!"

"She enjoyed it! She loves to sing!" Boromir said, his voice too generous to be anything but drunk.

"She loves to sing for you, Boromir," Faramir said angrily. "She will do anything to please you!

"Stop fussing, Fara…you're such an old woman sometimes," Boromir said dismissively, trundling off to bed with the stumbling gait of a man who has enjoyed the party too much.

But in the morning when the ache in his head was lessening and he could hear, amidst the buzz around his ears, the whispered comments and laughing asides about the Lady Rhoswen's song he found he could not dismiss it so easily as he had the night before.

----

It's been a long week, but there's only three weeks of school left. I"m not sure how I feel about this chapter, to tell the truth. Quite frankly, I'm not really sure about anything I write anymore. As I said, it's been a loooooonnng week.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

_Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day;_  
_And give us not to think so far away_  
_As the uncertain harvest; keep us here_  
_All simply in the springing of the year._

_-A Prayer in Spring, Robert Frost_

* * *

When Rhoswen heard the birds singing out in her garden and saw the first shoots sleepily poking their heads up from the leaf-covered beds she knew the earth was finally waking up. It was not so frosty now in the mornings, although sometimes a heavy fog hung around the city like a gauzy shawl.

She did not lack for things to fill her time now in springtime. The herb-beds at the Houses needed plantings from the tiny seedlings begun a month ago in warmed stone trays in the Houses' storerooms, and her own garden needed coaxing, too, to help it wake up fully. She was planting flowers here, but herbs also, the kingsfoil that Ioreth used so liberally to sweeten her room and mint and other more... womanly herbs. Red clover and nettle and damiana, yarrow and peppermint. "If you prepare them, lady, no one need know what you use," Ioreth said sneakily as she found seeds from the house storerooms and funneled them into packets for Rhoswen to label. It was a tiny conspiracy, one small plot of rebellion, and Rhoswen loved it. Then there were Serawen's seeds to plant, the gift from Hirluin that she had so easily scorned. Rhoswen had felt guilty, planting the flowers that were so near and dear to her at home; not because she no longer loved the flowers, but because she felt, somehow, that she was robbing Hirluin.

She had enjoyed his company at End-Year, as she and her brothers had oftentimes enjoyed it for less solemn occasions. Serawen didn't deserve him, and if it had been up to Rhoswen she would have lobbied for a different candidate from among the city's ladies - lively little Merethel, perhaps, or at the very least, someone who knew how to take a joke and laughed easily.

_But even your marriage was made for power,_ a sniping little voice reminded her, _and well Serawen remembers that power is all that is expected of her. Not love. _

_And yet here I am, marrying for power and for love and all the happier for it while Serawen plots and frowns,_ Rhoswen reassured herself. That was the other thing that was occupying her time now - preparations for her own wedding, to take place in July. Her dowry chests were done, that much had been taken care of long before she had even left Anfalas. But there was so much else to do between now and mid-summer. Tablecloths to hem (they must be new at the wedding feast) and the bridal sheet to embroider (such a lot of time was going into chasing the White Tree onto the fantastically large coverlet that would cover the marriage bed before the marriage was consumed) and the matrimonial clothes to be made up.

Rhoswen thought it a bit extreme, to insist that the bride and groom wear clothes that had never been worn before to their wedding. But Faeldes had explained (as she helped cut and piece the skirt with its voluminous train) that to be married in old clothes brought into the marriage old troubles, and newlyweds needed new beginnings in their new life. So Rhoswen had cut and pieced and sewed her wedding gown with the help of many others. The cloth was the color of new spring shoots - "A fertile color," Faeldes had said with a knowing smile - and it shimmered, Rhoswen knew not how, if one ran one's eyes along it in a certain light. The cloth was to be embroidered, too, but neither Rhoswen nor her ladies were doing that, only some seamstresses from the City who had come and asked, in small, almost awestruck voices, what the Lady would like her gown to look like. Rhoswen had asked for leaves and roses, but it was Faeldes who had stepped in and said that while the dress would have roses as the Lady Rhoswen wished, the vines along the lacing in the back would be filled with thorns.

"Faeldes, this is my wedding gown - we should not invite the idea that I intend to fight with my husband with it," Rhoswen said quietly, trying to speak so the seamstresses would not hear.

"It is not that you will fight," Faeldes said. "It is so that when he helps undress you he will remember that while you are beautiful, if he displeases you, you will take him to task for it. You have thorns, Rhoswen," the older woman assured her. "You only need to remember how to use them."

Between all the sewing that was taking place in her solar Rhoswen hardly had any time for herself. And Baineth, her brother Carnil's wife, was here too, with little Barhador, her newest nephew. Baineth had been of the City before she had married, and her parents and family had desired to see their new grandchild. So Baineth had come with her baby, only a month old, and there was another distraction for the ladies who came to sit and gossip with Rhoswen every day, and another thing to worry about for Rhoswen.

Not that Barhador was hard to entertain; at scarcely a month old there was nothing that did not perplex, mystify and transfix the little boy. He was a joy to simply watch, and to hold (which Rhoswen did, very often) and to make laugh. The same thing, unfortunately, could not be said for his mother. Baineth was pretty, yes, but in a pale, ethereal kind of way. Easily tired and very quiet, Rhoswen had always privately considered her sister-in-law more like a ghost than a woman. It seemed strange that fragile Baineth, still weak after her confinement, should be allowed to come to Minas Tirith, but she trusted her brother's judgement on these matters. Carnil loved his wife, in his own way, and they were happy enough, and that was what mattered.

Busy with her women's business, Rhoswen's life went on full of activity while Boromir, away in Osgiliath, counted time in small stones and wished they could move faster from one bowl to the other. It was an old device of Faramir's, a system they'd worked out when they were boys and wanted to count the days until something. The two wooden bowls watched Boromir's room from their place on the windowsill of his small camp room, allowing themselves to be tipped on onto the table every few days to count the stones left until Boromir could next return to the city.

Boromir studied the little pebbles, moving them around his map absentmindedly as he divided his thoughts – a stone to Rohan's capital, Edoras – there was news from an envoy there that he was told he should hear when he came home. Another stone to the Morilrannon, the Black Gates – the scouts in Ithilien reported strange men walking there who looked to be from the far east, beyond Mordor where no man had ever explored. And the third stone to Minas Tirith, where Rhoswen and a bevy of mindless meddling pertaining to their wedding waited for him.

No more mindless than sitting here and organizing patrols, Boromir thought to himself. Had he cared to note it, he would have realized it was one of the first times in his life he had found his military life boring. There had been no great action against Mordor for some months, only some skirmishes in Ithilien and a few raids further afield, close to the river in the north. There was tension in the camps, everyone alert to a coming threat that never came, Valar be praised. And still Boromir's heart longed for action.

If Boromir had bothered to pay attention to his history as a boy, he would have found he had more in common with his grandfathers and great grandfathers of old than he thought. Not all proud statesmen; some warriors among them who loved the thrill of battle and the tightened anxiety of the kill. They chafed in camp, grew restless at home with wives and children about them.

Boromir's hand drew the tiny pebble covering Minas Tirith down the length of the mountains until it covered the first A in Anfalas. When he returned Rhoswen would doubtless have another story for him from the coast, of the sheep-shearing or the pasturing or the lambing time.

It took an eternity, it seemed, for those three pebbles to migrate from one bowl to the other. And when he returned to the city, it seemed an eternity had passed. Nothing was as he had left it at midwinter.

Boromir never felt so strange or so foreign as when he walked into Rhoswen's solar then, filled as it was with the women of the city, eyes all fixed on him. The talking stirred to a standstill, and Rhoswen turned away from the window where she was standing, oddly, Boromir thought, revealing that she was carrying something large and unwieldly in her arms. The bundle gave an awkward cry, and Rhoswen began bouncing it again in her arms, cooing and smiling. "There, there, it is nothing, little one. It is only Boromir." She moved away from the window, walking forward in odd, swaying motions, rocking back and forth to somehow satisfy the bundle.

"Forgive the intrusion," Boromir managed, at a sudden loss for words, his ship aground on foreign soil. It was suddenly registering that Rhoswen was holding a baby. A dozen different thoughts were diffusing out of that one, whose baby and why was she holding it and didn't she look beautiful there, framed in the window, smiling?

"This is my nephew, my lord, my brother's son," Rhoswen said, introducing the infant and turning about so the baby's face, peeking out of an excess of deep blue blanketry, could stare in surprise at this new, strange face, trying to riddle out what it was this new being was doing. "His name is Barhador."

"H-hello," Boromir said, unsure of what one says when one greets an infant. "How are you today, fine fellow?"

The baby Barhador said and did nothing, still staring in surprise, wide-eyed, mashing his lips together and forming a bubble of spit on the side of his tightly closed miniscule mouth that Rhoswen painstakingly wiped away with a corner of the blanket. "Smile," Rhoswen suggested. "He loves to see people smile. Don't you love to see people smile?" she asked the baby, her own face crinkling into a grin. For a moment, Boromir stepped outside himself, seeing only this woman he was going to marry in a few months and a baby, a baby that brought a contented look to her face that he had never seen before. _Will she look that way when she holds our children? _ Involuntarily Boromir's face warmed to a thoughtful smile, and the baby's face lit up, spreading his own little lips into a beam of recognition, burbling out what sounded suspiciously like a laugh. "See?" Rhoswen said, contented she had coaxed the evasive smile out again in baby and adult. "Let us give you back to your mother now, little one," she said, wrapping a wayward corner back into the bundle and handing the boy back to Baineth, Rhoswen's sister-in-law, a thin woman with blonde hair who looked very much confined to the chair she was sitting in.

"The healers say she must not do much walking now, after the birth," Rhoswen explained once they were away from the solar and the other women. "It was unwise of her to come this far so close behind her confinement. And Barhador likes to be walked about, and bounced, and held."

"Do you like holding him?" Boromir asked, seriously wondering about the answer. There were never any babies about in the house of the steward – the children of servants were kept far away, and he had been too young himself to remember when his brother was only a babe in arms.

"It is… hard to describe," Rhoswen said.

"Are you looking forward to one of your own?" Boromir asked hopefully, his hand in the small of her back. "One of our own?"

Rhoswen's face looked conflicted for a moment, but she changed it quickly, smiling reassuringly. "Yes," she said. "I think so. Why are you home now, my lord?" she asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Nothing, really, a fitting of some kind," Boromir said dismissively, brushing the thought away as though it were a fly of some kind buzzing annoyingly near his ear. "Are there no end to these tailors and trifles?"

"Only after we are married, my lord, and then we may return to life as we intend it," she reassured him. "Perhaps the sooner you are gone to the tailor's the sooner you may return," the young woman suggested, an idea that pleased Boromir greatly.

It was only while standing shockingly still and silent on the tailor's stool that Boromir remembered he had council meetings to attend after this; Rhoswen would have to wait.

But Rhoswen had work of her own to attend to, and waiting for Boromir was not nearly as hurtful to her as it was to him."Clear or cloudy, sweet as April show'ring, smooth or frowning, so is his face to me," Rhoswen hummed to herself, picking up her gardening basket and moving on to the next flowerbed in the Houses' gardens. It looked like it might rain soon, and the weeds weren't pulling themselves up out of the beds. How the seeds managed to get up here Rhoswen thought she'd never know, but here they were, and ready to be plucked out.

It seemed so recently that they'd started the herb seedlings and even more recently still that they'd planted them. When did they have time to get so tall, or attract so many weeds? "Especially such...strong...weeds!" Rhoswen grumbled through clenched teeth, her fist tight around a particularly well-rooted specimen that finally decided to give way, flying backwards with the force of Rhoswen's arm like a leafy flail and sending loose bits of dirt flying everywhere. Somewhere behind her, a child being pelted with dirt clods laughed, and Rhoswen turned around, surprised to see Bergil the son of Beregond there, looking a little out of breath.

"Bergil, what are you doing here?" she asked, turning around and dusting off her knees a little bit, which, after a good hour of kneeling in the planting beds were very dark with mud and the spring damp.

"I am visiting my uncle Iorlas, Lady Rhoswen," Bergil explained, his voice very quiet. "We are playing a game."

"I am sorry to hear your uncle is here, and is sick," Rhoswen said, wondering where this uncle was and what he might be playing with Bergil.

"He's not really sick," Bergil said. "He's just broken a bone. We're playing hide and seek!"

Rhoswen was just about to say how unwise that was but someone else beat her to it. "Where is he? Where is the little scamp?" a man said, coming around the corner on a pair of crutches that were entirely too small for him and nearly falling face first into the ground when he collided with Rhoswen, who caught him just before he mis-set the leg that was so obviously broken.

"You must be Uncle Iorlas," Rhoswen said when he had found some footing again, balancing precariously. "Bergil is just there. Bergil," she called, using the maternal tone she didn't think she'd hear herself using anytime soon. "You should have let your uncle keep to his bed instead of playing games with you."

Iorlas snorted. "What's the use in bedrest, healer? A man needs to keep up his strength and remain strong for...all sorts of things." He looked her up and down, smiling a little. "Bergil, you'll have to introduce me to your friend here. I don't think I know her," he said in that tone that suggested he would like to get to know her more. Rhoswen knew the tone well enough after working with the soldiers for these spring months, but never to her face – the object was always someone's wife, someone's daughter, a passing noblewoman come from the herbarium to purchase seeds and preparations.

"This is the Lady Rhoswen!" Bergil said brightly. Rhoswen might have laughed at Iorlas' expression if she wasn't so concerned for his leg - the man's face fell into politely mortified surprise.

"Lady?" The word seemed to catch in his throat.

"Unfortunately I do not look it today, Captain, but yes, I am the Lady Rhoswen. Come, back to bed with you. That leg will not hold you forever and the bone-setters should not need to come again. Here, take my shoulder..." She held her arm around his waist, her shoulder momentarily crushed as the much taller man leaned on her for support.

Iorlas did as he was told, probably on account of his surprise, hopping back to his bed in the nearly empty ward and meekly crawling back under the covers."Forgive me... madam... I-I-I did not know!" he protested once he was safely installed under the sheets.

"There was a time you would have embarrassed me," Rhoswen admitted staunchly. "That time has long since passed." She did not know where this newly authoritative person inside her had come from, but it seemed that one day she had simply put on the mask of a woman who refused to be talked to as if she were a toy and like magic the men had listened. Her mothering voice, Ioreth called it. She was no longer afraid of what they said, though there were times when she could feel the old fear rising behind her hard-set eyes when they glanced at her in that eerie way. " You should have horsetail and nettle for the bone, which should still knit straight if your nephew's games have not knocked it awry." Rhoswen strode quickly to the stock chest at the end of the long, wide room, washing her hands in a basin before finding the dried and powdered horsetail stem and the flakes of dried nettle. Pounding them into an even finer powder she poured the gray dust into a clay cup, filling it with boiling water from the pot hanging over the fire and bringing it to Iorlas' bedside.

"Are you a healer as well, Lady?" Iorlas asked, a small note of rebellion evident in his voice as he eyed the cup with suspicion.

"Gardener, Healer, Lady of the House. I have enough occupation between them. Now drink that down, all of it, and don't think about pouring it out."

Meekly, Iorlas drank the muddied decoction down, grimacing and frowning at his nephew. "Let it be a lesson to you the next time Bergil wants to get you out of bed," Rhoswen said, knowing full well how foul it must have tasted.

"You're drinking that stuff if there's a next time," the uncle threatened, and Bergil pulled a face, wrinkling his nose.

"Bergil, I think that Duvain is making lozenges in the herbarium; if you are very nice and help her for a little while she might let you go home with some," Rhoswen offered, wondering if she could distract the little boy away for a few minutes and give his uncle some time to rest.

"Licorice?" Bergil asked skeptically.

"Spearmint," Rhoswen corrected, which sent the eight year old running to help the healer Duvain with the sugary little candies they made to help soothe sore throats. "He is a dear little boy," she said, watching him go. "I wish there were more in the city like him."

"He is a credit to my brother and his wife," Iorlas said, watching his nephew go. "He will visit me often enough here, that much I know."

"He...he speaks very highly of you, you know," Rhoswen said. "You are one of his favorite people in the whole world." There was no one Bergil liked to talk of better, actually; nearly every story he had ever told Rhoswen involved mighty uncle Iorlas, grown mythic in the eyes of the little boy.

"He speaks very highly of you as well, Lady, though...I could not say I know you from what he says. I had always thought you might be..." Iorlas trailed off, afraid of being trapped within his words.

"More docile?" Rhoswen ventured, wondering herself what this man of the guards might say.

"Softer," he finally decided. "Less decided. When a lady is here in the Houses, it is usually not for… anyone but herself that she comes," The soldier said diplomatically.

Rhoswen considered this, remembering a day – so very long ago now, it seemed – when she had met another lady here, one who looked ashamed to be seen and (now that she remembered it) flush with the pleasure of a newly-made bride. _He can choose his words well, this uncle of Bergil's,_ Rhoswen noted. _He could have said "for their own pleasure."_

"I serve here for the Lord Boromir's sake, and the good of the city," Rhoswen replied simply. "You will tell me if the leg pains you," she added, taking the cup and heading back to the supply chamber to rinse it and put it away.

"Yes, Lady," the soldier said dutifully, and a few minutes later from the closet she heard Bergil run off again.

"Lady Rhoswen," Iorlas asked on her way back outside to the garden, "Might I...beg a favor of you? If a mannerless man may ask such a thing," he added.

"I am short of hair-ribbons at the moment, if that is what you seek. And you might injure your nephew greatly in the asking. He would be very put out if his uncle displaced him as my favorite," Rhoswen joked with him.

Iorlas smiled at the suggestion in a feeble manner, probably still smarting from having spoken to his captain's lady as if she were a common bawd. "No, nothing like that, Lady. Might a…a book be brought? If I cannot play with my nephew, we might read together instead."

_But I forget that more men of the common folk can read here in the city_, Rhoswen remembered. "I think that a fine idea. What kind of book should you like?"

"It had better be a story, Lady, or many of them - something with heart and verve in the telling of it," Iorlas said after a moment's thought.

Rhoswen smiled, thinking of Faramir's shelves, completely at her disposal, and the well-thumbed volumes there. "I will see what I can do, Iorlas."

* * *

Heeding Chekov's warning that if you introduce a gun in the first act it must be fired by the third, I promise you I'll do something with Iorlas the uncle of Bergil. He just turned into a character I couldn't ignore after a little bit, another one of those random names Tolkien threw in and never did anything with.

As for the bit with the baby, well… it was too cute to resist.

Reviews will be used to feed my muses!


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

* * *

It was nearly dinner time, and Boromir was bored.

He had been sitting in council for the better part of the day after seeing Rhoswen and going to his fitting (he had not revealed that as the cause of his lateness to this meeting, but it seemed wise not to) and his stomach was beginning rattle his ribs, growling as if trying to break free of his body. His mind had not been in the meeting, though if he had cared to ask his father's secretary he could have been told that the topics discussed had been taxes and the proportion to go towards the payment of the army, signs of a corn blight in the Lebannin that might disrupt food supplies to the city and a new set of inheritance laws.

Boromir knew all of this was important, but his mind was elsewhere; after this visit home he was due to inspect the outposts of Ithilien and visit for a little while with Faramir, who had been out on duty for some months now after Mid-Year. Boromir was going with a supply train and several new recruits.

"There is still the emissary from Rohan, my lord," one of the grooms reminded Denethor, who frowned deeply and waved a dismissive hand.

"I'll not treat and parley with Leofric No-House-Of-Any-Repute," the steward said disgustedly. "If Theoden wants to send me envoys he can do it in the old style, when you sent your son or your nephew with important news."

"They have different traditions in Rohan, father; Theodred and Eomer are probably too busy for diplomatic missions," Boromir suggested, sitting up sleepily in his chair and trying to strike some sense into his father. But the iron, it seemed, was already cold – no change would take without heating it up again, and that was something Boromir wanted to avoid.

"You're here, aren't you?" Denethor asked sharply. "Captain-Heir of Gondor, High Warden of the White Tower. More responsibilities than Theodred Horse-Master and you're still finding time to get home to see your father and take council."

Boromir knew when a battle was lost before it started, and this looked like one of those times. He said nothing, sliding further back in his chair and stretching his legs under the table, liable to take a nap if something more interesting didn't happen quickly. Thankfully, the meeting was nearing its close – Boromir watched the other advisors file out, his eyes following the final black swish of his father's robe as it swept out of the chamber. There was a rushed exchange in the hallway and Denethor shouting "Begone!" and…silence. _Finally, an end to the day_, the Captain-Heir thought to himself, pushing himself upright in the chair and moving away from the table with a scrape.

"Sir, a moment of your time," a man asked from the corridor outside the council chamber, poking his head around the door. "The better part of a day I have waited here, and a day before that, and the Lord Denethor will not see me."

Boromir looked the man over from his chair, noting his field-green cloak and the absence of a helm at his hip. He was a warrior of Rohan, but came in peace, unarmored. He seemed ill at ease without either helm or sword, off-balance somehow, as if he were missing an arm and not a weapon only. "From whence are you come, friend, and in whose service?" Boromir asked, his assessment complete.

"Leofric is my name - I am a thain in the service of the House of Eorl, and I bring grave tidings from Rohan."

"What is King Theoden's news?" the Gondorian man asked, leaning forward in his chair.

"It is not...it is not for King Theoden I speak, my lord," Leofric managed, his words unsure and extremely cautious.

"Not for the king?" Boromir wondered aloud, trying to see what it was this man was trying to say without actually having to say it.

"I am...I am not come at his command, my lord, but rather at his nephew's, my lord. Lord Eomer, son of Eomund who wed Theodwyn the King's Sister."

_I know that house as well as I know my own, man_, the Gondorian thought to himself, vaguely annoyed that he was getting a lineage instead of the message. "In the days of old when an envoy came not from the king it was in wishes of war and kinstrife," Boromir observed. "We will have no part in the overthrow of Theoden. If that is what you wish, begone from this house," he said strongly, exiting the room and striding off as quickly as he could.

"Theoden would send word if he was permitted, lord, but his mind of late is frail," Leofric said urgently, following Boromir down the corridor. The word _frail_ made the High Warden stop. _What is so dire in Rohan that he uses that word to describe his king?_ "The council that Lord Eomer sends is one he would give his uncle, but the King will not take it. He turns to you instead, my lord, and if your father the Lord Steward will not hear it then I am bidden give it to you," Leofric said strongly. "Six days have I ridden from Edoras and two days have I tarried here; will you not hear my words?"

Boromir paused, and turned back to the ambassador. "What is your news, then, Leofric of Rohan?"

"We know you have your own share of evils here in Gondor, my lord, but to the Men of the North there are other evils still. There are new bands of orcs in Rohan, near the Misty Mountains. They bear strange devices, and travel under banners as Orcs in the wilds are seldom seen to do."

"If you have need of men we have none to spare," Boromir said shortly, turning again to go.

"It is not so dire as that, my Lord. Rohan can take care of her own," Leofric said coldly. "Eomer wishes only that you be told of these things. The White Mountains are not so hard to cross for a determined band if they have been promised the flesh of maidens and children on the other side, my lord. We wish for the safety of our allies in Gondor as surely as we wish for our own."

_It is good someone thinks of the commons, for we seldom do in Gondor_, the Captain-Heir noted to himself. "Thank you for your council, Leofric. I will see that you are given recompense for your service to us."

"Alas, my lord, I cannot accept. I am needed home, with my eored – I delay too long already. I will ask only for journeyfood, and feed for my horse."

"Our stables are not as fine as yours, but rest assured he has been fed while his master waited above," Boromir assured the man. Leofric smiled wanly, and bowed.

"Let your offers be remembered when next you are seen in the halls of Theoden-King, my lord," the thain said graciously. "These are strange days - there may yet be red arrows seen in Rohan as they were of old."

Boromir nodded grimly, watching as the man took his leave. He should send word to the lords nearest the mountains - old Lord Badhron in Lamedon, Lord Duinhir in the Blackroot Vale and Sir Dervorin in Ringlo - to tell them to keep watch and make ready. In the Vales they should have little problem for defense; both lords had strong sons and men enough to keep their castles. But Badhron was getting old, and had no heir to succeed him; a nephew or cousin of some sort was his option, but that lad was only four or five now. _You never remembered families but when it had to do with war,_ something in his head reminded him. _What houses had sons and soldiers, which had none._

Once as a child he'd seen the great heraldry lists, with each family's descent traced back to when Isildur was king. Where the line of kings ended, the House of Hurin of Emyn Arnen received a new banner – stark white, without a device of their own. _To remind the Stewards that they are always servants, boy, until the King comes again,_ his tutor had reminded him.

_Am I still a servant?_ Boromir wondered to himself. _I serve Gondor, but I have never served a king. What manner of servitude can that be, to wait upon an ever-absent master?_

_

* * *

_

Ithilien was pleasant after the bustle and business of the city – Boromir had not been to Henneth Annun or any of the other outposts for some time, and he'd forgotten how noiseless and quiet it oftentimes became in the woods. Not that it was any more peaceful than the city garrisons or Osgiliath – the air was still tense and the men still watchful. The post of Ranger was the most dangerous in Gondor, and given to the best of the City Companies, men who could string and shoot the longbow with stunning accuracy. Boromir had never been a bowman himself, but he'd often watched Faramir split an apple in two with a well-fletched bolt. It was one thing his brother had always been better at than him.

Living in Ithilien was an honor, but also an exile. Several days ride from the city, and some of that across bridges that might one day be crumbled down in the hopes of stopping the Enemy. _And yet I still send my brother back here month after month,_ Boromir thought to himself. _Or Father does, anyway. And a short visit every few months is the only gift I give him for enduring it._

_That, and letting him sleep in later when I am here_, he added with a slight smile, looking over to the sleeping mass on the farther cot, his brother's hair just visible above the green swell of his ranger's cloak, thrown up around his shoulders as a second blanket. A bird spoiled the silence too close to the window to be ignored, and the Faramir-lump turned over, grunting in annoyance.

"Sleep longer – I have the morning watch if there is need," Boromir offered quietly, spearing an apple slice on the end of his dagger and chewing thoughtfully. "You'll be no use to anyone without sleep."

Faramir groaned again and rubbed his eyes, swinging his legs over the side of the cot and rubbing his hands together in the morning chill. "I am awake enough already – there is little use trying to get back to sleep now."

It wasn't the answer Boromir was looking for. "You did not sleep soundly enough for me to be at ease, brother. What ails you?"

It was true – Faramir had not slept well last night. Any man who had not shared the room last night would have known it from his eyes, deep-ringed in fatigue, but Boromir had been sleeping here too, as was his custom, and he had awoken when Faramir had cried out in his sleep, tossing and turning all night as though he were a storm-tossed ship rather than a sleepy Ranger.

"I had a dream," Faramir said with a shrug. But even Faramir could not conceal that he had been disturbed by it, and Boromir fixed his little brother with a gaze to rattle the dead until finally the younger spoke again. "A dream that I have had twice now, not counting last night. In it the sky is always dark, and all is silent – a waiting silence. But in the west there is a pale light, as from stars, and a…a voice speaks to me."

"What does it say?"

"It speaks in riddles. Riddles and tongues. I think it is Elvish, though not of a kind I know well. And yet I know its message. Seek for the sword that is broken, in Imaladris it dwells…" Faramir trailed off, gesturing vaguely with his hand trying to remember. "There councils shall be taken, stronger than Morgul spells. There shall be shown a token that doom is near at hand, for Isildur's Bane is woken and the Halfling forth shall stand. A doggerel rhyme at best; I must have heard it somewhere else."

"If you have made no sense of it I am a poor person to ask. You were always the more clever of the two of us when it came to riddles in the dark," Boromir said with an uneasy laugh.

"The sword that was broken, that must be Narsil, but more than that I do not know. Imaladris is a name that is unfamiliar to me. And Isildur's Bane…" Faramir trailed off, finally shrugged. "It means nothing to me."

"Isildur had many things that cursed and haunted him. Perhaps the Men of the Mountain have woken," his brother suggested.

"The men of the mountain are a myth, brother, a story nursemaids tell you to make you eat vegetables and go to bed on time," Faramir said pointedly, rolling his eyes at the suggestion.

Boromir looked at his brother, surprised that Faramir of all people would be the first to dismiss such a claim. Were these days so dire that even Faramir was beginning to lose himself in war? "We live in the time of myths, brother, when black riders are seen in Rohan and the Deceiver throws up stone towers and comes to conquer. You were always the quicker to believe the old stories. Are you grown so cold in these dark days that even old tales cannot move you?"

"We live in dark times. Perhaps the time for songs and stories is at an end," Faramir said, a faint kind of hopelessness in his voice.

Boromir raised his eyebrows but said nothing, silently passing the plate of apple slices and rising from his seat at the window to attend the meager charcoal brazier and the pot of water that hung there heating.

After Faramir had eaten – far too little, Boromir thought, only a chunk of bread and the remainder of the apples and a scant cup of warmed over water – he showed his brother around his camp, the cubby-holes in his command chamber behind the water-fall where all his dispatches were carefully stored and copied, the storerooms in perfect working order and the men's quarters, all of it carefully hewn into the rock.

It was nearly noon when Faramir saw his brother glancing warily at the rock-walls in the furthest-back dormitories, rooms that were as far beneath the hillside as it was possible to go, windowless and without wind. "I forget you hate the underground," he said, leading his brother outside into the sunlit-chambers again. "It is nearly time for a troop inspection, anyway, and then you may stop craning your neck downwards!"

That was always the one thing Boromir hated about Ithilen – the Henneth Annun outpost with its vast networks of underground rooms. He was no dwarf that he enjoyed delving the deeps. _Put me out in the sunshine, the rain or the snow, _the Captain Heir thought to himself as he heard grass crush under his feet again, a welcome change from the hard wet floors of the cave. _Any element I'll gladly bear as long as it isn't underground caves where I am not constantly hitting my head._

Faramir ran what men he had in Henneth Annun through their training drills with excellence and precision – not an arrow was wasted or a sword-slice thrown astray. All was as it should be – these were the best troops in the Army of Gondor, and Faramir was not putting them to any misuse.

"You look tired, brother," Faramir observed, leading his brother up the winding stairs and out into the relative brightness of the daylight. The older man snorted and rubbed his eyes a little, trying to wipe away the sting of too much sun.

"Not tired, just…" he was tired, that was true, but Boromir was trying to find a word that meant something other than 'bored.'

His younger brother smiled. "In need of a little fresh air, perhaps?" he asked with a boyish glint in his eye, the kind of look a man takes on when he has a joke to play or some mischief afoot. One of the Rangers came up to the two men leading their horses, fresh from the concealed stable they maintained above ground, and Boromir mounted up, not sure what to think when they set out with a small supply train in tow.

They rode for perhaps an hour, with Faramir showing him the scout posts along the easternmost edge of the forest.

Boromir smiled feeling the wind on his face again. It was seldom that he rode without full battle armor on nowadays. But on his inspections of Ithilien he dressed as the rangers did – simple leather jerkin, green cloak. No mail, no plate, no helm. _As a man ought to be armored for the woods_, he thought to himself. It was in moments like this that he envied his brother. No great vast arrays of men to rally, no complicated movements to manipulate, only this small band of woodland brothers, as finely honed as an Armory knife-blade, lethal at a touch.

Faramir quickened the pace of his mount, bringing himself up alongside his brother. "There is a place nearby where we may rest for a bit, and take some nuncheon," he offered, directing the train into a hidden glen, an open space no bigger than Rhoswen's solar. The horses were hobbled and the saddlebags unpacked, spreading the noon repast on the ground, a veritable feast for an outpost such as this one.

Boromir stopped midway through a hunk of dense brown bread, hearing in the contented silence a sound not unlike a bowstring being drawn back. He glanced at the apple near his hand, one of the impossibly red, firm ones from Lossarnach, and without provocation threw it into the air, an unmistakable challenge. More than one bowstring twanged, and the apple fell down, porcupined by seven perfectly shot arrows, the smaller kind the Rangers used for killing game. The Captain-Heir laughed.

"Well done, men; the apple is most certainly dead!" Boromir pronounced with a wide smile, kneeling down by the unfortunate fruit. The trees allowed themselves a barely audible ripple of laughter and sank back into silence. "Were you going to have them shoot me, Faramir, to show their quality?" he asked his brother, who was looking at the apple with an amused grin.

The younger brother broke a piece of fruit off the impromptu target and ate the chunk off the end of the arrow. "No, I told them to target your saddlebag," Faramir said, making an impercieveable hand gesture to the trees. An arrow shot out, piercing the bag and causing something inside to burst with a loud noise. "A bladder filled with air," the captain of the rangers explained to his brother.

"A children's trick," Boromir accused. "The apple was a better plan."

"I'll remember that in future when I need to impress my commanding officer," the younger Hurin said. A low throaty birdcall sent the men away, presumably back to the posts where their watch-partners would be waiting.

Boromir looked around him, at the officers taking their ease and his brother, smiling among them. All one needed was a woman one loved and some wine, a little house, and this was paradise.

Inspection concluded and reports ready to be written, Boromir rode home to the city, intent on staying a few more days before heading back to Osgiliath. He submitted meekly to the trials of the tailor's stool again and sat through several very long and tedious meetings with his father and the pantler, the butler, the master of stores and the master of ceremonies reviewing plans for his wedding. "Could we not just stand before a group of witnesses, pledge our troth and sign our contract?" Boromir asked miserably at a private dinner that evening with Rhoswen. "I have been looking at figures for how much cheese we will need to feed the whole city. Cheese, Rhoswen!" he exclaimed.

Rhoswen laughed a little into her napkin, trying to maintain a sympathetic face and failing as she burst into laughter. "What do you find so funny, wench?" Boromir asked, trying to maintain a stern face despite himself. "Or shall I have to come down there and kiss some sense – I mean knock some sense into you!"

Now they both were laughing, she because she had found his complaints amusing and he simply because she was laughing. Rhoswen shook her head, still laughing and unable to speak. "I am sorry, my lord," she said finally when she had recovered her breath. "It is only that cheese is something with which I shall have to deal for the rest of my married life, and to hear you talk of it as if it were the greatest of trials is amusing to me. Just this once you will take care of it, and then it need never trouble you again."

"Does it not bore you, all this endless planning?" Boromir wondered from his end of the little table they had pulled in front of the fire for the meal. The evening was chill, as it often was in late spring and early summer, and there was a small and steady bed of coals there to warm the room a little.

"I was raised to plan and serve and feed," Rhoswen said. "When I was old enough to watch my father's stewards allocate for feast-days and festivals I was with them, helping and learning. I agree your father should not have made you listen – it is all rather dull." She took a small sip of wine and glanced up at him. "I think when it comes to it I have more patience than you, my lord."

"On that point, my lady, you are entirely true," Boromir admitted, smiling and settling into his dinner with relish, happy that there was still some laughter left in the world for him to come home to, and a measure of peace to serve it with also.

The measure must have been scant, however – the meal was not half-way complete when the door was assaulted by a rain of blows, some urgent hand on the other side deeming his news was more important than silence. Maireth, guarding the door like a diligent watchdog anxious for her master's peace of mind, rose to answer it, far more than flustered when the man behind the door pushed past her, breathing hard and stained from travel, his boots leaving a muddy flush to the carpet.

"Osgiliath is under attack!" the messenger said breathlessly, trying to catch his wind so his message could be understood. "Captain Faramir has fallen back from Ithilien, and calls for aid from the city companies; he says he cannot hold the city with the Rangers alone."

Boromir rose swiftly and silently, knocking his chair back in his haste to arm himself. Rhoswen was not so quick, rising slowly from her chair as if this were some bad dream, watching the man she loved ride off. _It will be often thus,_ something reminded her as she watched Boromir's servants rush to and fro, one running to the stables to make sure his horse was saddled and another to his second-in-command's house to rouse him up. Suddenly Rhoswen felt very alone, the only body in the room that was not moving at frantic speed. When Boromir emerged from his bedchamber, it was as a different man than Rhoswen had ever seen before, fully armored in the heavy plate of a Gondorian General. He seemed taller, and more intent of purpose – or was that only the helm he wore that narrowed his eyes in such a way?

She could stand it no longer – she threw herself in his way just before he could reach the door, reaching up and kissing him frantically, her hands slipping on his breastplate. She knew he must not delay, but something wanted to keep him here, keep him with her.

He pried her away, squeezing her hand as he did so. His grip felt strange in heavy leather gauntlets, and she stood aside, watching him leave. There was a twinge of pain in her finger, and she looked down to see that it was bleeding, cut on one of the decorations on his armor. A small cut, and easily mended, but bleeding badly. _He will ride into battle with blood already on him, _Rhoswen thought to herself. _That is a bad omen indeed._

_

* * *

_

Yeah, this was a doozy of a chapter. 8 whole pages, apparently. I just couldn't cut it.

I start work tomorrow, so I figured I'd better update now before my summer campers suck out my brains and use them for a craft project. Oh, you laugh, but I bet you dollars to doughnuts it'll happen. Those kindergarteners, man, they're ruthless.

There's a funky time shift between this chapter and the last one that I'm not quite satisfied with, but I didn't know what else to do with it, so funky it stays. I've got some fun shenanigans coming up after Osgiliath involving a trip to the seashore and some troubadours.

Oh, and I have a riddle for all of you - If 68 people on the planet want to know every time this story gets updated, why don't I have 68 reviews on each chapter?


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

A young knight comes to mind  
almost like an old saying.

_He came._ Thus sometimes in the grove  
the great storm comes and wraps around you.

_He left._ Thus often the wild benison  
of the great bells breaks off in the midst of prayer…  
Then you want to scream into the silence,  
and yet only weep softly inside,  
deep in your cool shawl.

-_Girl's Melancholy, Rainer Maria Rilke_

* * *

Two weeks they had no news but what the wind could carry, cries of death and the clashes of swords. Two weeks of waiting, jumping at every opened door and booted footstep. Three days of looking always towards the east.

And then the news came – the final bridge across the Anduin had been destroyed, dividing the city in two and stopping the enemy. Gondor was safe, and so, it seemed, was Boromir. When Rhoswen heard the news she laid her head down on the stone windowsill and cried tears of joy. "I will go to him," she said to Maireth. "I will go to him in Osgiliath."

* * *

Boromir looked across the great city of Osgiliath, his viewpoint at the top of what had once been a great tower offering a grand view. He could hear the men chanting his name as he planted the white and gold flag of the House of Stewards into the broken tower, and his voice rang across the once white ruins, now stained with the ash of battles too numerous to begin naming and the blood of men who had died for a now broken city. Osgiliath had not been built to see such things. His arms were tired, far more tired than they should have been after he had been swinging his greatsword all day. _Am I growing soft in my old age,_ he wondered to himself, the shaft of the flag strong and reassuring in his hand, almost the same diameter as the grip of his sword_. I am just coming to the days when I have the least time for tiredness_.

The air was clearer up here, and standing in the sun his back was warmed. He filled his lungs with an easy breath, and when he spoke, the ruins echoed back some of his voice, filling Osgiliath with sound. "This city was once the jewel of our kingdom, a place of light and beauty and music, and so it shall be once more! Let the armies of Mordor know this: never again will the land of my people fall into in enemy hands! The city of Osgiliath has been reclaimed for Gondor!"Cheering erupted through the ranks, the men repeating "For Gondor!" and Boromir looked around, reveling in his victory, smiling a little. _How long before all speeches like that are empty words? We have not reclaimed this city except by great chance, and were it to be attacked again we would not hold it, _Boromir thought to himself, trying to avoid looking in the opposite direction, away from the city and towards the other plain, towards Mordor. _Let them celebrate today. Let us be happy, and revel that we have, at least, one more day to live._

Faramir walked up to congratulate him, clapping him on the shoulder, both laughing at the various degrees of disarray and dishevelment on the other. "Good speech- nice and short."

The older man laughed. "Leaves more time for drinking! Break out the ale," the Captain Heir announced, looking around to the assembled men. "These men are thirsty!" His men cheered, and he felt some joy filter back into his heart. Boromir poured two goblets from the nearest keg, and, giving one to his brother, raised his own in toast.

"Remember today, little brother. Today," Here he smiled, and raised the cup, "Life is good."

Faramir raised the cup to his lips, and drank. But he had been looking over his brother's shoulder at one figure clad in black, the silvered black-gray of his long hair framing his wizened face. Boromir saw his brother's mood darken, and asked with growing concern, "What is it?"

Faramir's reply was simple enough, but layered with meaning. "He is here."

His brother turned around, to see their father coming through the crowd. His face likened to Faramir's in mood, the once jovial smile turning to a frown of annoyance and perhaps anger. "One moment of peace, can he not give us that?"

Faramir could tell his brother was more than a little annoyed. Already, the two men could hear their father's voice, running rank with pride.

"Where is he? Where is Gondor's finest? Where is my firstborn?"

Boromir quickly brightened his look for Denethor, who had finally made his way over to the pair. "Father!" Boromir announced, stepping out of the crowd to greet the Steward.

"It would be a cold father who was not proud of his son after today! The Captain Heir's glories will be sung in the city tonight by many a bard," Denethor exclaimed, his voice thick with some unseen joy. "But let me not waste your time," he added, eyes twinkling. "There is someone else here who would like to see you." Boromir's eyes faded into joy at the sight of a young woman in the borrowed green cloak of a Ranger.

"Rhoswen!" He flung her name to the breeze, and she ran to him, the hood coming off to reveal black hair. He picked her up, and spun her around, her willowy hands slipping on his armored shoulders. "It seems thousand lifetimes since I've seen you." He set her down, and kissed the crown of her hair, relishing the smell of her damp hair and perfume. "Now that I see you here, I think my speech was empty words. Truly, the fairest jewel of Gondor is in my arms."

"It was only a few weeks ago, my lord," Rhoswen reminded him. "Not so very long. And you give me too much credit. Númenorean craftsmanship far surpasses me."

"Cities we can build again," Boromir argued. "More Rhoswens, I think, would be impossible to find." He kissed her on the forehead again, hard, and tried to blink away whatever was in his eye that was making him tear up.

"Your father was wise to not let your love be given soon- you would be torn from your work," she whispered in his ear. "But tell me of the battle," Rhoswen added aloud, in a voice that all could hear. "They say you vanquished the enemy almost single-handed." Her face was wreathed in smiles, the perfect picture of innocence and beauty, grace and laughter.

_If only you knew, Rhoswen. If only I could tell you what I have seen. I would not disturb that smile and that innocence.I would not have you here at all. But see what your presence does for the men – they think it safe. They think their battles over for a time, if the White Rose may bend into the briars unharmed._ "They exaggerate." Boromir said quickly with a grin, turning to his brother. "The victory belongs to Faramir also."

"Then my congratulations are extended to Faramir as well. It has been long, brother," Rhoswen said, turning to the younger brother and embracing him as well "I thank you for the cloak."

"Not a favor that was ill to do, I see," Faramir said, examining the cut-down cloak and approving. "It fits you well."

She stood back and looked at both brothers, her face filled with laughter and light. "I have not been all telling of what female ears may come upon- many a man has told me that both brothers were to be given merit for the triumph. See what good comes when you get your head out of your books, Faramir?"

She had meant it as a joke – someone had not taken it as such. Denethor's cold tone brought him back down to earth swiftly. "But for Faramir, this city would still be standing. Were you not entrusted to protect it?"

Faramir quailed; this was so like his father. Rhoswen swallowed uneasily, her face falling into afterthought. _I should not have said anything. I should have been silent._

"I would have done, but our numbers were too few."

"Oh, too few. You let the enemy walk in and take it on a whim." The Steward turned away from his younger son, looking at his firstborn. "Always you cast a poor reflection on me," he said darkly.

"That is not my intent," Faramir began, but the words remained powerless on Denethor's ears.

Boromir's constrained and even voice turned surly. "You give him no credit, and yet he tries to do your will." He stalked off, his father following, cloak billowing out like the specter of death. Faramir and Rhoswen watched, and the younger woman sighed. From their meeting place they heard Boromir thunder "All he wants is to please you!" and Denethor's swift, short reply, unintelligible through the sound of cheers and merriment.

"I am sorry your father does not see eye to eye with you. Boromir does not mean to alienate you...it is evident I should not have come." The young woman looked down at her shoes. Faramir could begin to see why his brother was moved to adoration for this woman, why he wanted to protect her from anything, this delicate rose in the path of briars.

"Nay, sweet sister. Your coming is good for me, and for Boromir. All his thoughts have been at home. He needs you to live like fish need water. It is…good for him, in a way, to remember why he fights," Faramir considered. "All men need that. It is Father who should not have come." They turned at Boromir's angered yell from the corner where he stood talking with Denethor.

"My place is here with my people! Not in Rivendell!" The tall man began to walk away, and Denethor laid a hand on his arm, attempting to pacify the stung ox. Faramir looked at his gauntleted hands, and stepped forward.

"If there is need to go to Rivendell, send me in his stead," he offered, not knowing what it was he volunteered for. Boromir looked at his brother, hopeful. Denethor's sneer returned.

"You? Oh, I see. A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality - I think not." Faramir's face fell ever so slightly, and Rhoswen saw the slightest of slumps in his proud shoulders at the graze to his pride. "I trust this mission only to your brother. The one who will not fail me." Boromir looked at Rhoswen, and then at Faramir, and his face fell.

"I am staying in the city for the night, as is Rhoswen. Be ready to leave at dawn's light tomorrow," the Steward commanded. Denethor turned on his heel and went through the ranks, a false smile back on, congratulating men as he went. Boromir looked at Rhoswen, his eyes regretful. Rhoswen took one of his gloved hands, and they walked silently to his quarters.

Once the door had been shut, Boromir sat down heavily at the plain table, head in his hands. Rhoswen's voice seemed small in this stark soldier's room.

"The wedding will have to be postponed."

"Forgive me, dear heart." Boromir's voice was heavy, as though he were trying not to cry.

"For what?" Rhoswen asked kindly. "The country matters more than I. Gondor needs her Captain Heir. Rhoswen can wait for Boromir."

The captain looked up from his hands. "It is a long road to Rivendell, precious," Boromir reminded skeptically. _I know I shall be hard pressed to wait that long._

"Then my patience will be tested," she said staunchly.

"And mine grows thin!" Boromir shouted, bringing his fist down hard on the table and making the candles jump. Rhoswen drew back a little in fear. "Forgive me," the captain-heir said. "It has been a long fortnight."

"That is twice you have asked to be forgiven for something you could not change," she noted with a slim smile. "Tell me of it, this long fortnight of yours," Rhoswen said, sitting down on the ground near his feet and taking his hand in her own.

_You have asked, and now I must tell you._ "The Eastern shore is lost – we could not hold it, not with our numbers. But the bridges are gone now, all of them, and there is no chance of an easy invasion. Ithilien is lost as well – I have no idea where Faramir and the Rangers will be assigned, but this seems the most obvious location. I am leaving, and there is still so much to do here – so many dead to bury and so many plans to change…"

"What can I do here, my lord?" Rhoswen asked. Boromir turned his face to look at her, confused. "What can I do here, my lord?" she repeated again, pausing a little between each word so he would clearly see her meaning. "They have need of me here with the healers, and there are men in the company of my guards whom I can and would trust with my life. I am staying here a few days more, to attend the wounded. What can I do here for you?"

Boromir laid his hand on her hair and sighed. How domestic this scene suddenly seemed. Many more nights will be like this one, with her listening to his day's problems and proffering her help. "See to the wounded and comfort the suffering as you have said," he managed.

"And your accounts, my lord, your supplies and casualty lists? I can be your clerk as well as any man," she offered.

Boromir smiled wanly. "I have clerks to be my clerks, Rhoswen."

"Then I will supervise them in your stead," she decided. "Meet with your officers and make your plans, and in the short term I shall see what I can do about your dinner," she said resolutely, rising to her feet and discreetly dusting off her dress. Suddenly she looked so much older, so much more…motherly. The moment passed, and she was back to being beautiful, young Rhoswen again. "You look as though you have not eaten a good meal in a few days."

"I _have_ not eaten a good meal in more than a few days," Boromir affirmed. Realizing something, he went to the window and glanced below, looking at the men setting up one large marquee in the Steward's colors, Denethor's guard working diligently while the men of Rhoswen's detachment looked on silently, occasionally glancing up to the window.

"Where does my father expect you to sleep tonight?" Boromir asked, turning away from the window. "There is only his tent in the courtyard beyond."

At this Rhoswen blushed and looked down at her feet. "I do not think that was an accident, Boromir. He made mention of it to his clerk, when I should not have heard. He expects I stay with you, in your quarters."

Boromir frowned, realizing what it was Denethor was asking and snarling a little in displeasure, rolling his eyes. "This is too much!" he exclaimed, striding towards the door to give his father a piece of his mind.

"Boromir, wait!" Rhoswen said, stepping quickly between him and the door. "It need not be as he plans it to be. I shall take my cloak and a blanket and… sleep on the floor. Let the men think what they want when your door closes and the fire is out. We are betrothed, and it is not…not so uncommon," she finished rather lamely, looking everywhere in the room except at him. "Unless…you _would_ rather…" She couldn't even find the words to say what she meant, and gestured feebly towards the bed, her words becoming faster, more agitated. "But if it is six months to Rivendell and back and that with a good road, who can say if you would be back before…" Again she could not finish.

His shoulders dropped, a bit of his bluster gone in the face of her anxiety. "We are not so much in the wild here that we cannot find you a cot," Boromir offered gently, kissing her on the forehead. "I would not leave you alone to bear a burden like that_." For if I did not come back, where would she be then? An unmarried woman with a child, a …a prince's used goods._ Sudden evil images sprang to his mind of the widows the streets saw sometimes, women whose men had died or left them for other posts, begging with their children at the wayside, unwelcome at every door. It was enough to wrestle down any ideas the southern regions of his body might have, however far away that idea would be for Rhoswen.

"Go see to your plans," Rhoswen said again, stepping aside from the doorway, "And mention nothing of this to your father."

Dinner that night was nothing like what they had been eating in Minas Tirith the night Boromir had left – watered down second rate wine, used for medicine more than honest drink, and some kind of stew. His victualler had found some white bread, rather than the coarse brown the men were issued, and a kind of fruit tart that must have used a great deal of precious honey to flavor and season it. Sitting in front of the fire again (a very small, steady flame from charcoal, and not wood) at a wooden table that had never even known varnish on stools instead of chairs, Boromir suddenly felt full of shame. Shame that he could not keep his soldier's world from Rhoswen, that now she was here, in this place that could be full of hardship, lacking all the comforts to which she should be accustomed.

Rhoswen, it seemed, sensed something was wrong, and after she had set down the clay pitcher filled with wine, reached across the table and took his hands in her own. "We are here," she reminded him. "We are alive."

That simple joy, it seemed, was enough for her. _But is it enough for me? _

_It was once,_ Boromir thought to himself.

He was thinking about everything he knew of Rivendell, the Imaladris that had been mentioned in the dream. He did not want to think of it when Denethor had mentioned it, but suddenly, it seemed, the dream was true. And now it weighed his heart down as much as Faramir's. When he had caught a few hours' rest after three incredibly long watches, practically sleeping on his feet, the dream had come to him as it had come to Faramir, dark and full of ill omens. And now he woke, and found it must be true.

Rhoswen, seeing that something was weighing on his mind, asked the same question he knew he had to tell someone, or else burst like an overburdened dam. "Why must you go to Rivendell?"

"The leader of the elves there has called a counsel. Father is adamant someone should represent our interests."

"But there is something else about this. Something that troubles you. You are trying to hide it, but I see it in your face every time the name Rivendell is said."

Boromir sighed. "For several nights past, Faramir has had a dream, telling him that the Sword that was Broken has been found again and Isildur's Bane is rising." Boromir paused, studying his fingers, trying to appear as if this information did not trouble him greatly. "Last night I had the dream as well, exactly as he spoke of it, and now my father says I must go North, to the home of the elves of which the dream made mention."

"That is strange indeed," Rhoswen murmured, pondering all this privately.

"You do not believe me," Boromir accused, looking up from his hands at Rhoswen.

"I believe all," Rhoswen said strongly. "I have no reason not to."

Boromir smiled a little, taking in the little warmth from the fire and studying Rhoswen's face in the firelight. "Will it often be like this between us, taking counsel?" he asked, more for his own benefit than to actually ask the question of his betrothed.

"Would you have it otherwise?" she asked. Boromir shook his head.

She asked him little questions after that, what he knew of the elves and the peoples he might meet on his journey northward. It surprised him, to hear her ask of all these things he had been taught to remember since childhood, about Rohan and the geography of the northern lands. _But they do not teach women as they teach men,_ Boromir reminded himself. Outside, the night sky grew darker, and the light from the little fire seemed to draw them closer together, until finally the fire was in danger of petering out and it was late enough that Boromir should have been sleeping.

"If…you would not mind," Rhoswen said, gesturing with her hand that she meant for him to turn around so she might undress in private. Boromir nodded painfully, striding over to the window again and glancing down into the courtyard at his father's tent, sitting contentedly in the moon-silvered evening. All was silent below, although it seemed the steward was taking the night air – a candle burned in the tent, but Denethor was outside, looking up at his son's window. He locked eyes with Boromir for a moment, and his lips curled into a satisfied grin. He nodded to his son as if sharing a private secret, and then returned to his tent, blowing the candle out. Boromir frowned, wondering what his father was thinking behind that strangely evil grin, and glanced quickly behind him.

Rhoswen was standing in front of the fire, folding her dress, the low light of the coals illuminating her body a little through her chemise. He quickly turned away so she would not see him, listening as the cot creaked and finally she said, "You may look now."

She had climbed beneath her blankets, propriety unruffled, back towards him and his own cot. Boromir nodded grimly, undressing himself and climbing into his own cot without so much as another word. When he was firmly underneath the covers he chanced saying "Good night" across the darkened room, but there was no reply – either Rhoswen was already asleep or too afraid of what she might invite to answer.

Dawn came too quickly, with Faramir (who had taken the night watch) rousing him with a heavy hand to his shoulder. Boromir arose with a grunt, rubbing his eyes to rid them of sleep and then, remembering his guest, turned towards the fireplace. Rhoswen's cot was empty. "She has gone to dress," Faramir said. "We'll move the cot away and put another pillow on your bed and Father need never know the difference."

"You disapprove," Boromir judged sleepily.

"I disapprove of concealing what should not need to be concealed," Faramir said shortly, not wanting to discuss the matter further. "You're the only man in Gondor for whom chastity has suddenly become a sin." The younger brother huffed his disapproval and paused for a moment, recovering himself and letting his ire pass. "Your bags are packed and your horse saddled. The only thing lacking is your person."

There was precious little ceremony as Boromir prepared to leave for the north – only a few of his captains and Rhoswen, looking as though she had not slept a moment, stood to wait for him. In the dim light of dawn Rhoswen looked so very different from the woman he had eaten dinner with. Her hair was hastily dressed and she was wearing the dark cloth and light apron of the healers. With darkened circles under her eyes, she looked almost like a ghost. Boromir tried to shake the image from his mind, remembering the bad luck that comes from dreaming people dead. When it came time for him to make his goodbye to her, they both held their embrace far longer than Denethor might have thought appropriate in public. But Denethor was not here – the Steward was sleeping, content to leave his son's leave-taking to the young. "You must come back," Rhoswen said finally. "You must come back to me."

"I will," Boromir promised, his voice sinking into her hair, though it seemed a lie to say it.

"Take this with you," she said, breaking apart their embrace to hand him the necklace she had been wearing the day before, a fine chain of silver with a heavy pendant made of moonstone, a large curve of stone polished until it reflected back the light. "And remember me with it," she added hopefully.

Boromir fumbled with the chain, and finally Rhoswen took it back, fastening around his neck and tucking it underneath his heavy traveling cloak and surcoat, her hand tentatively pressing the chain close to his skin. _This is the closest I will be to her for a long time,_ Boromir thought to himself, and without warning pulled his betrothed in for a kiss.

In any other place the men who saw, the few on morning watch or those heading to their posts, might have cheered. Now did not seem the time. Boromir left the kiss to mount his horse, saying only to Faramir "Remember today, little brother."

Faramir put his arm around Rhoswen's shoulders and nodded, the two of them watching as Boromir urged his horse to a walk. They watched him for as far as they could, down the road out of the old city until he turned a corner, and could be seen no more.

Beside him Faramir could hear Rhoswen sigh. "My heart is heavy, Faramir," she said at last, the dawn lifting off some of its grayness and fading into more promising pinks and oranges.

_My heart is heavy for you,_ Faramir thought to himself, but could not bring his lips to say it. Instead, what he said was "We should return to our work."

Rhoswen nodded grimly, pulling herself away to go back into the city and report to the healers, while Faramir went to take his counsels with his captains, feeling more alone now without his brother to guide him than he had ever felt before.

* * *

Well, it appears my little 'please can has reviews' stunt at the end of last chapter has actually LOST me some readers, so allow me to offer an apology. By no means am I saying that I don't want you reading if you don't want to review. Some people pointed out to me that depending on where they're reading they may not have the time or the screen space to write a review (reading on an I-phone, anyone?) and I appreciate that. It's just nice to hear from everyone once in a while, you know?

If you're so inclined, a heads-up about what I did right (and what could use un-doing) would (as it always is) be greatly appreciated.

I told myself at the beginning of the summer I'd try to update every month. Well, the last update was the middle of June, so here we are, in the middle of July, and here's our update! Life's been pretty crazy around here – taking a big teacher certification test this week, have my last writing workshop on Wednesday, and oh, yes, my mother wants my room cleaned. And it's absurdly hot.


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

* * *

She left the web, she left the loom,  
She made three paces through the room,  
She saw the water-lily bloom,  
She saw the helmet and the plume,  
She looked down to Camelot.  
Out flew the web and floated wide;  
The mirror cracked from side to side;  
**"The curse is come upon me,"** cried  
The Lady of Shalott.

_- The Lady of Shalott, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson_

* * *

It seemed, as Rhoswen rode back to the city beside her guards, that a part of her body was off, elsewhere, no longer in her person. At this moment, she knew, Boromir was somewhere to the north, probably in Rohan, riding off to Rivendell and the enchanted houses of the Elves. It reminded her how little she knew of life outside of Gondor's borders. What peoples would he meet, riding northward? What monsters? Rhoswen made a note to ask someone to find her an atlas or a map of the rest of the world. If she could not go with him physically, then perhaps she might go with him in spirit, and chart his journey on paper.

She could have spoken to Faramir about it, as Boromir had asked her to do, but the younger son of Denethor had secretly gone back into Ithilien, leaving one of Boromir's lieutenants, a man she did not know, in charge at Osgiliath. Denethor himself had ridden back to the city some days previously, and Rhoswen had remained to tend to the wounded in the company of the healers of the outpost. It was hard work, arduous and dirty, and the first thing Rhoswen wanted, after the atlas, of course, was a long, hot bath. Then, after she had made herself presentable and fixed her affairs of state mask back on, she would have to receive the court ladies, who of course would ask all manner of questions they did not want answers to and give all sorts of unfelt condolences that Boromir was now far away from her and likely to remain so for long. The thought of all that sycophancy made her feel a little ill inside - she'd spent too much time among straightforward, soldiering men the past few days to think much of carefully planned flattery, and the empty space in her chest was leaving room for anger to begin taking root, a slow simmering slime that was clotting her ability to make that empty smile again.

As Rhoswen held her little court the next day, the empty space filled still further with disgust, and she couldn't help feeling distant, worlds beyond these other women. It was the same feeling she had felt when she had first come to the White City, when her heart had still been in Anfalas. Now it was in three places - in the North, with Boromir, and out at Osgiliath, with the wounded, and here, physically in Minas Tirith. She could be doing so much more help there, instead of doing her woman's duty by embroidering cushions no one would ever pay attention to except to remark at their noteworthy pattern. Her trousseau was finished, and now it was back to fripperies once more.

She glanced around the room, her gaze alighting on a few ladies near the corner who were working on baby-clothes - hemming tiny tunics and shirts, piecing together a boy's first breeches. Rhoswen's arms suddenly felt very empty. Baineth had returned to Anfalas, taking Barhador with her, and there were no small child about for Rhoswen to cosset and love. Faeldes would know what to do, perhaps even offer to let Rhoswen visit her house and hold her own children - the youngest was only three, still small enough to merit a seat on her lap and a kiss.

"Where is Lady Faeldes?" Rhoswen asked. The room stopped, looking at their leader in suprise.

"I thought you knew, Lady. She is in the Houses of Healing."

"Whatever for? Is one of her children ill?" the White Rose inquired, her voice a little sharp.

"It is her husband, lady," one of the older women said, her voice moderated and slow. "We thought you knew, since you were at Osgiliath."

Osgiliath. Rhoswen mouthed the word, averting her eyes to the smooth stones of the floor. We thought you knew. "Knew what?" Rhoswen asked, looking up suddenly at the other women. "Knew what?"

* * *

This part of the houses was very cold, even for high summer, nestled in at the very heart of the mountain. The air was thick with herbs, those in the smudging pots hanging from the ceiling, giving off the earthy tang of sage and cedar to clear the air, and the thick, cloying sharpness of the myrrh and cinnamon that had soaked the bandages the body would be wrapped in. Here was Faeldes, shorter than Rhoswen remembered her, stooped next to the stone block on which the body rested, covered with a fresh sheet. The room was almost silent.

"They told me I could find you here," Rhoswen said from the doorway. "But I will leave if you wish."

Faeldes looked up, and Rhoswen could see the woman's eyes were now crimson from crying, though her cheeks were dry. "They told me he might live," she managed. "They told me he might see his daughters married and his son grown."

"They will be a credit to him where he goes not," Rhoswen said, her throat dry, her voice weak. _Did my own father cry like this, at the side of my mother? _And a far darker thought - _Will __**I**__ cry like this, when my time is here? _"And a...a comfort to you," she added feebly, the last part of the words breaking off as though she had not breath enough to say them. "As I will be," she said, grasping Faeldes' free hand, standing at her friend's side.

"They have already washed the body. They say I must not delay any longer," Faeldes sobbed. "I cannot do it," she exclaimed through a mouthful of tears. "I cannot shroud him! He cannot be dead!"

Ioreth bustled forward from some unseen place, all business. Rhoswen had seen that face before – it was the face the older woman wore when the surgeons had to take of a leg to stave off infection, or when news was brought that a new cure had not worked.

"Here was your husband," Ioreth said, drawing back the sheet. Rhoswen held Faeldes steady as the older woman slumped against her, fresh tears in her eyes. She had hardly known Faeldes' husband, a knight of Boromir's Out Companies, seldom home except at holidays. His face had been handsome, now sunken and pallored in death, his dark hair stronger against his gray skin. Beside her Faeldes' body shook, strangely warm in this place where all else was cold. "Here was a man who loved you, who gave you children! He knew his duty, and he knew that all men must die. But he is at peace now. He can suffer no further. He has served you well as a husband, and you must serve him well still as a wife. Let him have his last duty of you."

Faeldes wiped her eyes and gazed at her husband again, her fingers gingerly pressing against his cheek, brushing a nonexistent hair out of his now-closed eyes. Ioreth held out the face-cloth on open palms, and finally Faeldes took it, the crisp folds falling apart as she dropped her hand to her side and slowly kissed her husband's cold, dead face. Then she positioned the cloth over his features, gently adjusting it as though he might still feel a stronger touch. Ioreth held out the myrrh-soaked linen, standing beside Faeldes as a wall stands beside a drooping tree overburdened by a strong wind.

"I will hold his head," Rhoswen offered, and Faeldes nodded, taking the first strip from Ioreth's bowl and wrapping it under the corpse's chin, securing the face-cloth in place as the hair slowly disappeared from view and the scent of the resin dripped onto Rhoswen's hands. Setting the head down, Rhoswen helped her tie off the first strip just as she would a field bandage and lifted the head again so Faeldes could begin wrapping the other way, across the face, binding the features below the cloth into soft relief against the fabric.

* * *

They buried Gwalion, husband of Faeldes of Pelargir, father of Miriel, Silifel, and Tuon, Lieutenant of Osgiliath, as a rewarded and respected man, in the burial vaults outside the city walls, in the same tomb where many of his family had already been buried. Only a knight and not a lord of great worth, the funeral was small and the funeral feast modest. Rhoswen attended both, as Faeldes' friend and as something of a representative of the Steward's house. She was well-received by her friend for remaining at her side, and perhaps even better respected by those of Gwalion's friends who thought it showed well that the steward would send his (near) daughter in law.

Rhoswen pulled away from the gathering when she thought Faeldes could hold her own, taking her glass out into the front hall of the townhouse where the lady was now faced with the daunting task of bringing up her three children alone. Faeldes' oldest daughter, Miriel, was sitting alone in the front room, sniffling strongly and looking very much as though she were doing her utmost not to cry.

"Have you eaten, Miriel?" Rhoswen asked, sitting down next to the ten year old on the cushioned bench and looking carefully at the little girl. Miriel shook her head silently. "Are you sure you wouldn't like something? I can go fetch a plate," Rhoswen offered, her voice softer than it might usually have been, afraid to touch the room's relative silence.

"I don't want mama to see me. I have to be a big girl and big girls don't..." The child's resolve broke; the tears came as readily as they had been willed not to. Rhoswen couldn't imagine how little ten year old Miriel had been holding it all in. "Everyone expects Mama to cry, so I can't cry so she knows I don't need her to be a big person for me. So she knows she can cry, too. Mama always gets worried that I'll be afraid if I see her crying."

"Oh, Miriel, no one expects you not to cry. And I'm sure your mama would make an exception for this."

"I'm sad my papa is gone!" Miriel admitted tearfully, sinking her small, curly-haired head into Rhoswen's chest. "He's never going to see Tuon get big enough to have a sword or write his letters or show Silifel off in her big girl dresses and Mama's not going to have anyone to talk with and she's going to be really lonely..."

_And what has he deprived you of, little Miriel? No father to hand you away at your wedding, no man to keep your dowry and negotiate with it. How much you think of others, little one. _

"What are we going to do?" Miriel finished miserably, still crying rivers of tears.

_Why do children think they must take on the world?_ Rhoswen wondered to herself. Out loud, she was saying something comforting (or at least, she thought it was comforting, she didn't know herself) "Miriel, your mama is a very strong woman, and she will take good care of you." This did not seem to do much, and Rhoswen tried a different track. "I lost my mother when I was very small, did you know that?"

Miriel silently shook her head, tears still streaming down her childishly round face.

"She died when I was born," Rhoswen explained. "She never had a chance to see me take my first steps, or play with my brothers again, or hear about my first kiss. Your papa had many chances to do some of those things with some of his children, and many of them were with you. You gave him a very special gift, being his first daughter. Fathers love their daughters very, very much, you know. But someone told me that my mama was always watching out for me after she died, even if she wasn't there, and I think, if you wish hard enough, your papa will be able to hear you in the Land Across the Sea and help you."

It was a pretty story, and one she was sure someone had told her at some point when she was crying for not having a mother like all the other girls. But it worked its magic and Miriel sniffled, rubbing her eyes with the corner of her sleeve and then surreptitiously using the same corner to wipe her nose. Rhoswen straightened Miriel's mourning dress and made sure her hair was straight. "Shall we go back inside?" she asked hesitantly, not wishing to place the terrible yoke of the feast back on Miriel's thin little shoulders. The little girl sniffled bravely and nodded, placing her own little hand inside Rhoswen's, clinging on for dear life just as her nephew Barhador did, the tiny fingers clenched hard. _Oh, child. You will never stop knowing sorrow,_ Rhoswen thought to herself as she and Miriel went back to the funeral feast. _We must only pray you always have someone to share it with._

* * *

Tears are the greatest ointment  
to dress a body gray  
and the only gems the dead may wear  
when they go to Judgement Day.

* * *

Very short, very depressing chapter. I apologize. I do really like the way this turned out, though – one of my goals for the story this go-round was to explore more of the private, social, feminine culture of Gondor (as opposed to the public and very masculine arts of war that Tolkien explains for us in ROTK and elsewhere) and this chapter is a triumph there. For whatever reason Rhoswen got herself in a funk in this part of the story and refuses to leave. I've got some of my best characters working on it.

Lothiriel: I don't think this would have happened if you hadn't chosen to read Twilight at the beginning of the summer.

Hey, you're not supposed to be out here yet!

Reviews, as always, make me smile a great deal. Also, ideas on how to get a very talkitive Amrothian princess to be quiet would be appreciated too.


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter Sixteen

Let me not to the marriage of _true_ minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds. – Sonnet 116, William Shakespeare.

* * *

As the day which marked her first entry into Minas Tirith rose on the calendar and finally passed, Rhoswen realized how much she missed seeing autumn in Anfalas. She had grown accustomed to the rhythms and rituals of the City, to the daily comings and goings of the people, but what she missed, now more than ever, were trees. What colors she would have seen in fall, if she were at the coast. There were fewer trees at home now.

"Home," Rhoswen repeated to herself quietly, looking at her slowly decaying garden and tasting the air as she rolled the word over her tongue. She had called Minas Tirith home in her thoughts for some time now. _What does home mean? Is it the place where you are made welcome, or the place where you are the one welcoming? And who makes the home? Is it the husband, the wife? Or both of them together?_

Rhoswen glanced down at her hand, conspicuously missing the ring that should have adorned her heart-finger, and sat silent for a moment to hear the noises of the city below. It was louder than usual beneath her feet, but there was good reason for that – The City of Kings would later be celebrating the marriage of Lady Serawen the daughter of Lord Hurin to Lord Hirluin of Pinnath Gelin.

Someone called her name from the doorway, and she turned, seeing Maireth there, waiting with an air that hinted at impatience. The servingwoman's arms were crossed and her hips tilted in that just-so way that revealed far more about her disposition than her face ever would.

"You left your chamber an hour ago," Maireth said. "You must not delay any longer – the feast will be starting soon."

Rhoswen nodded, rising from her bench and brushing a little life back into the herb she'd been holding in her hand –rosemary, for remembrance. Maireth would braid it into her hair so she'd smell sweet at the bridal banquet, as was customary. _And if we were in Anfalas, the bride would plant a rosemary bush at her door so the herb could be used when the house was sick_, Rhoswen thought to herself as she followed Maireth back to her solar to continue preparing for the feast. _But we all know how Serawen feels about planting._

The two women prepared in silence, companions for so long that words were no longer needed. Rhoswen was lost in thought and Maireth was letting her stay there, privately thinking it might be better without words on this day. Rhoswen might have chosen to forget it, but Maireth had not – her little girl should have been married today instead of Serawen, on one of the last beautiful evenings of the summer. An auspicious day, and one not to be wasted, and so it had been given to Hirluin and Serawen. The Lord of Pinneth Gelin had spent his last hours as a free man cavorting in his town house with his friends, christening the marriage bed with the succor offered by the oldest wines and showering the soon-to-be-wed man with advice for his wedding night, while up in her own chamber, Serawen's friends were offering the same as she took her bridal bath. Maireth was glad Rhoswen had not been invited to attend that – the servant despised the daughter of the Keeper of the Keys as much as her mistress did, and besides, it would have been too much, reminding Rhoswen of what she was missing.

A different woman had come back from Osgiliath, and Maireth did not know her – she was focused, sharp-edged, even, someone with something to hide. _What is it about this city that carves such secrets into souls_, Maireth wondered, looking at Rhoswen's reflection in the mirror and wondering, as she always did, at the intensity in the eyes she found there. _Something will break that brittle stem_, the servant thought to herself. _Let us hope it is not this wedding. Far heavier tides than these will the reeds need to bend before._

* * *

As a personal favor to his friend and advisor, Denethor had allowed the Great Hall of the King's House to be used for the celebrations. Great swags of greenery, well-traveled from Lossarnach under piles of snow to keep them fresh, decorated the walls of the hall and the tables, which were fairly groaning underneath the weight of such a well-appointed feast. The Keeper of the Keys was wealthy, and it was Lord Hirluin's first marriage – both conditions that merited no small measure of ceremony. More than one baker, flower-merchant or chandler would rejoice tonight over the marriage which had brought him such good business for the week.

fIt was custom to greet the bridal couple as they sat, like the king and queen of their feast, at the high table, and to this errand Rhoswen went without hesitation, knowing if she could not stand on ceremony with Serawen she could stand on little else.

Erun, escorting his sister to this august occasion, glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She was rigid, somehow, her lips tight and her expression vacant. " Look at Serawen," he ventured, his mouth curling up for the beginning of a joke, " She looks as though she's swallowed a lemon."

The laugh Rhoswen gave her brother was neither given smiling nor indeed a laugh at all: it came out half-choked, more a sob than actual laughter. It did not rouse her expression – she did that on her own as they drew nearer to the table, fixing some countenance that was not true happiness on her face when it came time for them to be received.

"Lord Hirluin, my sister and I wish you and your bride joy," Erun said, bowing in the accepted manner.

"Oh, that is not enough -Wish me joy, Lady!" Hirluin exclaimed, his face tinted red with laughter. "It is not every day the friend of your childhood marries!"

"May your children be blessed and your home filled with kindness," Rhoswen said, filling her face with a smile she did not mean. _And how could I mean it, with that hating, lying woman for your wife? You deserve so much better, my friend,_ Rhoswen thought to herself, glancing at Serawen. The other woman smiled sickeningly back, every line in her face betraying what she thought of Rhoswen's well-wishing.

Erun and Rhoswen took their seats among the general tumult, by nature of Rhoswen's new rank close to the dais where the family of the bride were seated. When all were assembled the bridal promises would be repeated and the wedding cup drunk, and Hirluin and Serawen would be married. Of course all this was just gesturing – the real marriage would come when the contracts were signed and the dowry purses exchanged. And there was the more coarse custom still to come later that night, when the bride and groom would be shown to their bedchamber and locked in for the night. Rhoswen wanted to give as little thought to that part of the evening as possible.

The chief servitor struck the bell that signaled the start of dinner, and everyone directed their attention to the head table, where Hirluin was standing to say a few words.

"Friends and honored guests, I thank you all, very much, for being here on this most wonderful of days to bear witness to the promises you are about to hear. You see before you today the happiest of men," He said, looking at Serawen with a beatific smile. She returned it, the rest of the hall clapping politely as she stood up, letting Hirluin take her hands in his own.

"Let it be known that on this fifteenth day of the eighth month in the year 3018 in the Reckoning of the Stewards of Gondor, this man, Hirluin son of Hirmith of the place called Pinnath Gelin in the Kingdom of Gondor takes this woman, Serawen daughter of Hurin of the city of Minas Tirith in the Kingdom of Gondor, to be his wife under the laws of the Sons of Elendil, the conditions for such an agreement having been fulfilled in full measure."

"Be it known that this man gives to this woman the estate called Eithel Ereg and all the incomes of that place, as well as the sum of one hundred gold castari as her bridal portion and a surety in the event of his death, and will give to the children she brings to his line all his other fees, properties, chattels, and sureties in accordance with the laws of inheritance. Let this ring," Hirluin said, drawing forth a rather large and gaudy object from the pouch at his waist and placing it on Serawen's finger, "be a sign of the covenant that has been signed between us, and a reminder of the duties I am bound to give unto thee."

Serawen's eyes lingered on the ring for a moment and then drew her eyes back to Hirluin. "Be it known that this woman brings to this man the sum of one thousand gold castari as her dowry and as surety in the event of the untimely death of her husband, and will give this to her eldest daughter in the event of her own death. Let this ring be a sign of the covenant that has been signed between us, and a reminder of the duties I am bound to give thee." The ring she set on Hirluin's finger was only a simple gold band, but he did not linger over it as Serawen had – his eyes, too caught up in the throes of love, were fixed on her face.

Rhoswen frowned; Serawen's vow had sounded more like a particularly boring school lesson than an eternal promise to keep faith with Hirluin. But even a lackluster recitation could not wipe the smile from her friend's face as he continued on with the ceremony.

"In the presence of these witnesses we have taken this pledge, in order that they may remind us of the obligations of marriage. I drink this cup with thee, as a token of the meals we will share together and a promise that I will always provide for thee." The marriage cup was an antique, Rhoswen knew, taken from among Hirluin's ancestral treasure, the blessing cup for the Lords of Pinnath Gelin for generations. The plate from which Serawen picked up the honey-cake, the next part of the ceremony, was a perfect match to it.

"I break and share this honeyed cake with thee, as a token of the sweetness that shall pass between us and a promise of the help I shall give thee in all thy works." Carefully she broke off a piece and passed it in between his lips, a few crumbs escaping onto his chin and jacket. Hirluin chewed thoughtfully, allowing Serawen to brush his face with a napkin before reciting the final lines.

"And all these promises I seal with a kiss, that there will always be love and affection in our house," Hirluin said finally, leaning in and kissing Serawen gently on the lips, to the great delight of the rest of the hall, abandoning polite clapping for cheers and shouting. Impressed with the reaction, Hirluin kissed her a second time, longer and stronger this time, and the calling grew louder, nearly drowning out the music that was beginning as the first course of the banquet was brought into the hall, lead by a group of troubadours decked out in very pretty livery, bells on their coats and merriment in every step. The party would now begin.

When the guests had finished eating the music turned more lively, a capering tune that called the young people, and even some of the old, out of their seats to dance. Rhoswen took a turn with Erun and then left him with Merethel, looking radiant in her dress and absolutely smitten at the idea of being able to dance with Lady Rhoswen's handsome older brother. The groom himself asked her for a dance, and Rhoswen gave it, smiling in spite of herself as Hirluin lead her through the steps.

"Does she not look radient, Rhoswen?" Hirluin asked, glancing at Serawen as they moved through a bower of the other dancers' arms.

"She does," Rhoswen said, hating herself for lying with such ease to one of her oldest friends.

"If I could but see you so happy on your wedding day, Rhoswen," the Lord of Pinnath Gelin sighed, the dance drawing to a close. "Truly, I think I did not know joy until today. All that beauty – mine! I do not know what I did to deserve that," he mused to himself. "I pray Boromir feel just as blessed when he returns to marry you," the bridegroom said enthusiastically, kissing Rhoswen on the cheek and departing with hurried apologies when another lady asked him for the next dance. Seeing no one to ask another dance of her, Rhoswen hurried out of the hall, basking for a brief moment in the dulled noise outside the hall and breathing properly for what seemed like the first time all night.

"My husband does you great courtesy, Lady Rhoswen," Serawen's voice said coldly from somewhere in the silence behind her. Rhoswen turned, still trying to find her breath and a little bit of kindness in her voice at the same time.

"I knew Hirluin when I was young," Rhoswen explained, "He visited often, as a friend of my brothers. And he is the best of men," she said finally, finding little else she wanted to say. "I wish you joy, again, on marrying him."

"Yes, I suppose he is," Serawen said, her voice bored. "The best of men. But rather boring and a little too solid for me. I shall not enjoy his aimless thrustings tonight, of that I am quite certain. I think I'll find a better swordsman soon." She curled her lips into a satisfied smirk for Rhoswen's benefit, finding some perverse pleasure in the indignation she had caused in the younger woman's face.

"When I am wed I will not be so free with my husband's affections," Rhoswen threatened, her voice cold and her intention murderous. _How dare you say these things about my friend? Hirluin is more of a man than you deserve._

Serawen threw her head back and laughed, looking at Rhoswen with wine-dulled eyes. _She is drunk_, Rhoswen said to herself in disgust. "And now we see the little rose's thorns," Serawen exclaimed scornfully. "What poor weapons they are, too. Loyalty and devotion? What will you do when your husband wants for sweeter meats, lady rose? Even the fairest flowers fade."

"Bathe in sugar, if need be. And bind him fast to me beforehand, so that when it comes to it, he will love even my wilted petals while other gardens throw themselves at his feet." Her words were stronger than she felt.

"Bathe in sugar? Oh, that's rich. You are too _good _to meet depraved tastes," Serawen judged, curling a finger around a lock of her hair, dangling alluringly over her shoulder. "And all men have them." Serawen's bright eyes gazed triumphantly at Rhoswen as the younger woman stood rooted to the ground, her arms tight at her sides. "It is no secret what happened at the Midsummer all that time ago," she added. Rhoswen felt her heart grow cold. "Poor, dainty little Rhoswen, guarding her virtue. If you can't even open your legs for the man, what else is he supposed to do but find pleasure in another's bed?" she asked, her laughter twisting her verbal dagger even further.

From the inside of the hall the sound of a wine-sodden and happy crowd was coming closer to the door, in pursuit of the bride so that they might drag her off to her wedding chamber. "Just you wait and see," Serawen threatened, turning around to face the wedding party and filling her face with a sickenly ribald grin. Rhoswen could take no more, and removed herself from the passageway, finding a bench outside the doors where no one would see her, or if they did, would mistake her absence for anything but what it was – a desire to get away.

The tears started slowly, first hot on her cheeks and in the hollows under her eyes, and then faster, more furiously, clouding over her eyes with a watery pane that made the world ripple in and out of sense. _Curse that woman for her selfishness_, a very black part of her heart cried. _And curse whatever man she uses to betray my friend. _

"Rhoswen, is ought amiss?" someone asked. Rhoswen wiped her eyes and looked to see who spoke. It was Faramir, home on one of his infrequent leaves, reluctantly called back by Denethor to represent the family. He had obviously only just arrived, for his clothes were stained with traveling and his boots still had a flush of mud on them. "Why do you cry? Surely you too have not been taken in by the female propensity to cry at all weddings. I had always thought you better than that."

"I was only thinking that I should have been married by now, Faramir." That much was true, but it was so much more than that, things that she could not say to Faramir.

"Ah, yes, that." The younger brother seemed at a loss. "I am sorry to have brought it up, then. What did Serawen say to you?"

_Only spiteful things. But I would not give you more to fret about, Faramir, even if you begged it of me. The problem is mine alone._ "Nothing of consequence. I am tired, brother – I should like to go to bed now, if you will walk me back."

It was a silent walk to Rhoswen's chambers, and Faramir bid her goodnight as quietly as he could, heading off himself in the direction of his rooms. _So he too dislikes weddings, _Rhoswen noted. Maireth was still down below with the other servants, talking and laughing. _Let her have her fun. I need time to be alone._

Her bed seemed larger than it usually did, larger and colder. Climbing underneath the covers, Rhoswen sat up for a moment and stroked the second pillow in the dark, imagining the hollow there had a head in it, with eyes that adored her and lips that would try to kiss her own and mend her heart. It should have been full, that pillow. And when it was, she'd do her marital duty as well as any woman, and it would not be only a duty, either. When she finally laid her own head down, she knew there would be a stain to clean in the morning. But at least tears washed out from linen better than heartsickness did from the soul.

* * *

It was fall, and the flowers were drawing back into themselves, shriveling down to brown stalks and returning to their earthy beds. And the White Rose, it seemed, was no exception. Like the plants in her garden she too was withdrawing from the world, with fewer words for the people she met in the Houses and fewer smiles for her friends. She did not invite so many women to her solar as before, only the few whose silence was not as brittle as her own, Faeldes and Merethel and some others. And she no longer took the harp that was her great delight from its dark velvet bag. With chambers silent and music-less, Erun felt, walking into them, as though she was in mourning. _Sister, where did the lady lioness I met here in the summer go? She's been replaced by a mouse,_ he felt like asking Rhoswen.

The wedding had been hard on her, that much he knew. He did not know what had been said between Rhoswen and Serawen, but it had obviously caused her some pain – in the coming days, when the bridal couple had emerged from their house in town and gone away to Pinnath Gelin, Erun had seen the cleverly disguised look of disgust on Serawen's face and wondered if perhaps Rhoswen had known this was a loveless marriage, and that Serawen, lovely, blossoming Serawen who had flirted with him more than once, was capable of hurting Hirluin in ways many marriages could not even begin to imagine.

_What is it about this place that chains her down?_ Erun worried, watching his sister at her sewing in the now empty solar. She entertained the other ladies of the city but little now. _Denethor's moods, this untimely marriage, death all around, no solace to be had from a lover…Gods! With a sea-anchor like that, it is a wonder her ship is not sunk already._

Her friends came to him, quietly asking if there was anything they could do to help. He had to shrug and say that no, there was nothing he could think of that would rouse her. She said little about what had troubled her and less about what would help, as if keeping the problem her own might lessen the inconvenience to her friends. But Faramir, keener-sighted than most, came nearer to a solution that would please everyone than even Erun had hoped possible.

"Let her go away from here," he suggested to Erun over a quiet cup of after-dinner wine before Faramir went to bed, wanting to be off early the next morning back to Osgiliath. "Perhaps she fears judgement, to speak of things here. You are right, Erun – this place drags her down. As it drags many men, and many older and wiser than herself."

"But where? Anfalas is too far, and I fear returning home would not be good for her either."

Faramir considered this, staring into the fire wistfully for a few moments. "Dol Amroth," He said finally, looking up at Erun with a quietly satisfied look. "My father will not refuse that. She reminds him of our mother. There she will find joy, and lighter hearts, and the companionship of my cousins, who are good company even in the worst times. Dol Amroth will be good for her."

"You think it wise for me to ask this of him?" Erun wondered. To bring up the Lady Finduilas in however small a manner always seemed unwise around the temperamental Denethor. There were rumors, too, of how much his reason had declined, careless lips who had mentioned, just in passing, that there was something amiss in the Steward's mind. Bending propriety and trying to manipulate the rules of betrothal, encouraging ... relations between the Captain-Heir and the Lady… No, no, better, surely, to let the Steward's plans remain untouched and untampered with. It was said the man saw spies and traitors at every turn now.

"I think it unwise to send me instead," Faramir said frankly. "I bore him ill news this morning, and he has had his fill of me, I think. Catch him at a meal – he is better- tempered then."

"And why shall I say she must leave?" the younger son of Golasgil asked, leaning forward in his chair. Again Faramir's eyes grew distant, and he sipped his cup distractedly.

"Say she is heartsick," the captain of Ithilien replied, remembered something from long ago that Erun could only guess at. "That will stir something in him, if nothing else will."

* * *

_I would swear my father's hall is not so cold_, Erun said quietly to himself, entering the King's Hall with steps as silent as he could make them. _But then, my father has a warmer way about him than the Steward._ As Faramir had said, Denethor was eating now, the servitors quietly withdrawing from the room with trays in hand. He would have to be quick, and mannerly, too.

"My lord, I beg an audience with you," Erun said, walking quietly into the periphery of the great room and the table that made it seem all the larger for its small size.

"Yes, Lord Erun?" Denethor asked, blotting at his lips with his napkin and taking another bite out of his meal. "What is it?" he asked, chewing with gusto.

"It is my sister, my lord," Erun began, drawing closer to the table and the man who occupied it. "I fear she is unwell." The silent hall was menacing, the space at this particular moment overwhelming.

"Get her to the healers, then," Denethor said distractedly, vexed that his meal should be disturbed over so small a matter as a health complaint of the female kind.

"It is a kind of heartsickness, my lord. Not so easily cured as that."

"Heartsickness?" the Steward repeated after a hefty pause. His voice was alert now, his eyes, though not trained on Erun, bright and focused.

"The wedding of Lady Serawen and Lord Hirluin has reminded her of what she is missing here. It has renewed what time might have made easier to bear." He would not say Boromir's name – two of the Steward's groomsmen had been talking, in low voices, of how the Steward had brindled this very morning when Faramir had spoken of his brother. _Do not presume to tell me how your brother would have handled things,_ the Steward had thundered._ We two are of one mind._

Denethor stopped chewing, finishing what was in his mouth and slowly considering what it was Erun was saying. "And what do you recommend, to ease this...heartsickness, as you say?"

"Let her go away from here for a time, my lord. A change of scene might do her good...let her forget."

"Surely not back to Anfalas!" Denethor bristled, frowning deeply.

"Of course not, my lord," Erun put in quickly, placating him. "But to go to the coast, to …Pelargir or Belfalas, would not be so long a journey," he suggested lightly. "I think her heart yearns for the sea," he added, not sure if that would help his case. _It is not so strange a notion. Is it not said the house of Anfalas has elven blood in its line? She yearned for the sea in earlier days._

"Dol Amroth," Denethor said finally. "She shall go to Dol Amroth, to...to Boromir's cousins there." Erun noticed he did not say 'my wife's people' or 'my brother-in-law'; even to say the name of the city the youngest son of Golasgil saw was a painful task for the steward. _Your sons knew something was not right in your head, Lord Denethor. What is it they saw change that I have not?_ "Is that all, Lord Erun?" Denethor asked, turning his face away from the younger man.

"Yes, my lord. I will arrange the rest, if it will please you."

"That will please me very much," the Steward said, his fist poised tightly above the arm of his chair, every angle of his body the pose of a man holding a great tide of emotion in. Erun could almost hear, as he bowed away and left the chamber, the solitary sound of an old man crying.

* * *

This chapter was a little more episodic than the rest, but I think it conveys what I needed it to. Rhoswen's depressed, everyone's worried, and Serawen is still a pain in the butt, but Denethor gets a human moment and I got to make a lot of veiled references about Findulas, so it's all good, right?

I'm back at school (OMG SENIOR YEAR OF COLLEGE WTF?) and one of my classes is English Renassiance Lit, so don't be surprised if you start seeing more sonnets as openers. We were reading Philip Sydney yesterday and I was reminded strongly of Rhoswen when he wrote that in Stella he saw the only woman in whom beauty and virtue were combined perfectly. (I'm sure if he'd been familiar with Serawen he would have written another poem about how beauty masks insincerity.)

To the people who have in recent weeks added this story to their story alerts or their favorites – HollyBethRAWR, Jeanie91, edible Frisbee, BethyBooW and others -Thank you! Your support, though silent, is still appreciated!

Also, it is my birthday on Wednesday. The big twenty-one. So I am posting this chapter as a present to myself and hoping that I maybe get some reviews as birthday presents?


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

_The trees are in their autumn beauty,_  
_The woodland paths are dry,_  
_Under the October twilight the water_  
_Mirrors a still sky;_  
_Upon the brimming water among the stones_  
_Are nine-and-fifty Swans._

- The Wild Swans at Coole, William Butler Yeats

* * *

The closer they drew to the sea the more alive Rhoswen became - her cheeks brightened a little and her head rose up, her face even showing a hint of a smile as the familiar smell of the salt air came back to her. When they finally reached a place where the road ran close enough to the shore that a wave breaking on the rocks there sprayed foam up onto the path and wet the hooves of Rhoswen's horse, making the animal dance, Erun heard his sister laugh for the first time in a month. Even if it was a thin and skittish sound, it made him happier for hearing it.

Dol Amroth, the City of the Swans, jutted out into the sea just as Minas Tirith burst forth from the Ered Nimrais. The City of Guard kept the mountains at its back, rooted in the earth, a city for men. But Amroth's Tower, built before men had strength enough to carve into the earth, drew its strength from the ever changing sea, a link back to Numenor of old, and beyond that, Westernesse and the great abode of the gods, Valinor. The little shops and streets of the town spread before the castle like a skirt, spreading up the ever steepening spit of land until one's eye reached the pinnacle, The Prince's Citadel, white walls winking in the sun, daring itself to be looked at and admired.

The livery of the guards made the people of the towns draw back respectfully, glancing with eager and interested eyes at the lord and lady who rode by, heading up the hill to the Citadel.

The castle was of an older design than Minas Tirith – the stonework spoke to a time of greater artistry and finesse. Elven masons had done some of the work in the oldest parts of the fortress, their lines more fluid and their designs more real. Rhoswen found herself staring up at the stonework in childish wonder again, not that men could build so tall but that they could make a thing of stone so beautiful.

Erun's letter of passage, with Denethor's signature and the Steward's seal set into it, were enough to send the guardsman at each gatehouse running to admit them speedily, earning the company a few more awed looks from the soldiers who guarded each gate. Merchants and travelers were common enough in the City of Swans, but to travel under Denethor's seal was a sight seldom seen.

Unlike the King's citadel, with its many ringed chambers and back stairs, the Prince's house opened first on a wide courtyard, ringed with rooms and clambering towers. The tower of guard was built to keep enemies out, while Dol Amroth welcomed them in, the doors to the Swan Hall a straight ride from the town's outer gate to the citadel's mighty doors.

The hall that welcomed them was not as stark nor as cold as the Great Hall of Minas Tirith – the stones of the floor were a soft green, veined marble, and the carving on the pillars that held the ceiling aloft was softer and more ornate, with more mind given to the beauty of the task rather than the bare practicality of the exercise. There was a seat for the Prince at the head of the hall, carved of a handsome dark wood and painted, at the head, with the twined necks of two magnificent swans, their wings spread behind them to create a strange winged crown around the man who sat there. The seat, however, was empty.

"Lord Erun, we are glad of your coming," the tall grey-eyed man who sat just below the prince's chair said, welcoming them and descending the dais to clasp hands in friendship. "Your sister, too, is most welcome here. I am Lord Elphir, Prince Imrahil's eldest son," the man went on. "There are, I think, more introductions to be made, but I know that the journey from the White City is long and your eyes are tired."

"My sister, I think, would like to rest; for myself, a guide to my brother Lucan's quarters would be most appreciated. He and I have things to speak of," Erun said with the grace of a diplomat.

"Certainly," Elphir agreed. "My sister, Lady Rhoswen, has asked that you stay with her while you are here. She is anxious for news from the city, and would be most grateful for a companion," he said, turning his elegant face towards the White Rose. "She begs your pardon that she cannot be here to greet you herself."

"The Lady Lothiriel has opened her house to me; I cannot refuse her," Rhoswen said graciously. "It would be a privilege to share rooms with her. But I must beg some solitude and sleep for a while – I have not slumbered well since leaving the city."

Elphir nodded, the consummate host. "The Lady Lothiriel is detained at the moment, but I will see she is told you are not to be disturbed."

Rhoswen nodded, curtseying again and withdrawing with the servant Elphir summoned with the touch of a small silver bell. Walking through this castle was far different than Minas Tirith – drawing close to one of the windows, Rhoswen heard the sound of a woman's laughter coming from a garden outside the citadel's main fortifications, and the delighted current of music that struck up when the woman's laughter ceased. _The air has movement here,_ she thought to herself.

Lothiriel's rooms were large, clearly the province of a princess of the royal blood; bright scenes of hunts and pastorals decorated the walls in hangings, while on the floor, a massive rug that looked very expensive hid the coldness of the flagstones from the lady's delicate feet. Everything spoke of a young woman's hand – perhaps the same young woman she had heard laughing in the garden on her way here. A second bed had been installed in a corner, curtains drawn back to let the ample light from the windows in to warm the covers.

"My lady has said you will take her bed while you are here," the woman who came to greet them said, bowing low. "Your servingwoman is welcome to sleep here as well, though there are quarters for her with the maids in the room beyond if that is your wish." She snapped her fingers, and a train of maids appeared, each bearing a tray of food or wine, which they set on the tables nearest the windows and left silently, filing back out the door. "If you require anything else, use the bell," the servants' summoner said, pointing imperiously at a small silver handbell not unlike the one Elphir had rung on the ground floor.

"And your name, should we need you?" Maireth asked, positively bristling with animosity.

"I am Idhreneth, the Lady Lothiriel's chief attendant," the woman said, bowing again and closing the door tightly behind her.

Maireth waited until the door was shut to harrumph with annoyance and straighten her feathers a bit. "Chief attendant indeed. She's the lady's nursemaid, and make no mistake about it. Putting on airs like she was some kind of queen!" she blustered, bustling over to the veritable banquet laid out on the sideboard and sniffing disdainfully. "There's enough food here to feed your brothers and still have some for the dogs. What a waste," the maidservant pronounced.

"They had no way of knowing I would not be hungry, Maireth," Rhoswen said softly.

"Well, at least they had the decency to give you some quiet before meeting everyone. And in a bed, too. Perhaps you'll sleep better once you're on a mattress again, Lady," the servingwoman said.

"I will not sleep just yet; there is a dress I must mend and letters I must write," Rhoswen said. It was true enough– one of her traveling dresses had caught a tear and she had promised Faeldes that she would write once she reached Dol Amroth. One letter would be enough; Faeldes would share it with those that needed the news, and keep it away from those that didn't. And she knew if she fell asleep now, in the early light of the evening, she would awake far before anyone else in the household. Maireth nodded, heading towards Rhoswen's trunks freshly arrived from the baggage caravan and rummaging through the top layer for the dress Rhoswen spoke of while her mistress surveyed the room again.

There was a workbasket near one of the chairs by the fireplace – opening it, a thin layer of dust clung to her fingers, the contents in near pristine order, clearly not an item that saw much use. Rhoswen found a needle and thread in the correct color, sitting down as Maireth brought the dress over and settling comfortably into the familiar routine of mending.

The day passed, the sun set. Husbands went home to their wives, dinners were laid on tables, fires banked, the children put to bed. And deep in the private chambers of the Swan Citadel one knight was returning to his chamber for a private word with his brother.

"The lord Imrahil has said I may take a leave from my duties in the evenings, to spend time with you and Rhoswen," Lucan said, sitting down with his brother and pouring a generous cup of wine.

"She will be glad to see more of you," Erun said distractedly, staring at the fire, his own winecup forgotten. Lucan glared at his brother for a few moments and then exploded out of his chair in anger, standing over his brother with the posture of a man who needs answers quickly and has no time for niceties and sitting still.

"You may know what is happening here, Erun, but I have been told precious little! And from the Prince himself did that intelligence come, not my own brother! I have not been told why she is here, or what it is that happened in the City that now my sister is a quiet, nervous rabbit of a woman!"

"Nothing happened, Lucan," Erun said tiredly, still not willing to make eye contact with his brother.

"Horseshit," Lucan said strongly, eyes ablaze as he leaned forward as if to strike his younger brother. "Something happened. Is it so shameful you will not speak –"

"She fell in love!" Erun shouted back, finally turning around in his chair to lock eyes with his elder brother. "She fell in love with the man she was supposed to marry and now while he is gone she is distraught. That is what happened." _So much more than that, but let me keep it simple for him. I have not the heart to explain the rest. Hirluin was his friend, too._

Lucan frowned, settling back into his chair with hackles still raised. "There are strange tales from the White City of late," he said darkly. "There are some who say the Steward ill-used our house."

"And they would all of them be true," Erun confirmed heavily, taking a long drink from his cup. "The House of Anfalas has been ill-used."

"I knew it," Lucan growled, "Trust Carnil to sell our sister to the highest bidder to keep his patrimony intact. Six years I have not seen her except at End-year and now she is engaged to the Steward's son and melancholy besides. Trust that great brute Boromir to break her heart."

"It was not Carnil who arranged it. It was Father, through and through. The Steward gave him no choice, and if you had been home, you would know how much the decision pained him. He knew when he came home that the city would test her, and I have not let him know how much since I was summoned there. But do not blame the Steward's sons – of all people they have been most kind to her. And Boromir -" Erun paused, remembering that first painful meeting in the Houses of Healing. "Boromir would not hurt her for all the world. He loves her dearly." _Denethor is another matter; the longer I stay in the city the more I am convinced his intentions in this marriage were not right. He does not love her as a father should love a daughter. As a farmer loves a cow ready to drop calves, perhaps._

"As any man should love her," Lucan said darkly, distracting his brother's thoughts on the Steward.

"And now that we have spoken of Boromir, you will tell me a little of this place, Lucan," Erun said evenly, taking another sip of his wine. "What manner of woman is Lothiriel, that we should entrust our sister to her company?" _If she prove to be like Serawen, we would do well to stay clear of her._

Lucan's eyes grew lighter, his face less haggard. "She is the best of women," he said without pause. Erun raised an eyebrow suspiciously and took another drink of wine.

"Really. Do tell."

* * *

The sea-air did nothing for Rhoswen's sleep – awakened in the middle of the night by she knew not what, a dream or the sharp sound of the waves that she had gone so long without, Rhoswen sat up in bed and glanced through the bed curtains at the windows. A small sliver of moon was just visible, still fairly high in the sky. _Fool,_ Rhoswen thought to herself, drawing back inside the bedcurtains_. It is not morning yet._

_And it is foolish to believe you will fall back asleep,_ another voice in her head said.

Rhoswen sighed softly, drawing herself up and slipping her feet out through the curtains. The night air was chill, folding around her feet until they touched the soft landscape of the carpet near her bed. But there were not carpets all the way to the windows, and at least once Rhoswen bit back a gasp of surprise as her foot hit the cold stone of the floor.

Far away from the windows, the sea was crashing on the rocks of the promontory on which the Swan citadel stood, and Rhoswen was struck with a sudden desire for a walk. Where, she did not know – the house was still foreign to her. But they would not miss her – the rest of the castle would not be awake.

She dressed alone and followed the sound of the sea, blindly wandering through the corridors until she finally made her way outside. Slipping through a garden, barely illuminated by the remnant of the moon and the mere promise of a risen sun, she stumbled through what she thought was an overgrown path until the sea opened up before her, with a narrow way, hardly wide enough for a man to pass, leading down to a beach.

Rhoswen settled down in the sand, grasping a handful and letting it fall through her fingers. The beach was quiet; no gulls calling, no ships' bells or passing calls from sailors. Only the waves. She sighed, breathing in and out. _Finally, a silence that agrees with me_, she thought to herself, staring out at the horizon-line. A great weight had been lifted from her chest – there was no one to impress here, no rules to follow or protocols to break. Her breath fell into time with the waves, watching the tide fall and creep back from the shoreline, opening up a new stretch of beach strewn with shells and seaweed and all the other detritus of the ocean.

She didn't know how long she sat there, only that it was getting brighter as the sun rose higher. Part of her knew she should return to the castle, and part of her did not want to return, not ever, to the realms of men. Perhaps she could make a raft and float out to sea and live with the fish.

"Ah, I knew it!" A woman's voice exclaimed behind Rhoswen. She turned to see a woman no older than herself, with dark hair and gray eyes, coming towards her over the beach. Her cloth was good, though simple, and she wore no coif, indicating she was unmarried. "You've got the whole city in an uproar, you know," the young woman said, sitting down beside Rhoswen in the sand as if they were good acquaintances and staring out at the horizon. "When your servant – Maireth, is that her name? – woke to find you gone, she called your brother, who called my father, who called out the whole city guard to comb the castle looking for you. They thought you had run away - or worse. I asked myself where I would be if I was in a strange city and I could not sleep…and I found you, here."

"Who do you think I am?" Rhoswen asked, wondering in her tired, sleepless mind who this young woman was that she thought she needed no introduction. She was rather free with her words, too, now that it came to thinking of it. _And how had she known I could not sleep last night?_

"You are the Lady Rhoswen, late of Minas Tirith and later still of Anfalas, the White Rose," the young woman supplied.

"How do you know me?" Rhoswen asked, a little bewildered that even here in this strange city there were still strangers who knew her name.

"You are exactly as my cousin described you," the woman said with a smile. "And you look very much like your brother Lucan as well."

"You know my brother Lucan?" Rhoswen asked, trying to place this woman who was obviously born to some privilege within Dol Amroth.

"Not well," the woman admitted. "But I am seldom permitted to know men well here. He is in the employ of my father, in the Swan Companies."

Her cousins, her father…the Swan Companies."You are Lothíriel," Rhoswen realized, finally placing the woman's face amongst the others she had met the other day.

"I am sorry I was not here to greet you the other day when you arrived," the now-named princess of Dol Amroth apologized. "My mother had me engaged elsewhere when we knew not the hour of your coming. She said you would need rest, and I would only be a nuisance to you. When you could not be found this morning I joined the search – and in rather a more helpful way than your brothers, if you don't mind me saying so. There were the wildest tales in their heads this morning. The Lord Erun seems to think you've been kidnapped by unscrupulous sea-captains and sold into slavery among the Haradrim."

Once the suggestion and the merry tone with which it was conveyed might have made her laugh – now all Rhoswen could feel was guilt. "I suppose we should go back to the palace, then," Rhoswen said, sighing and preparing to rise from her little hollow in the sand. "If they are so concerned for me I would hate to –"

"Oh, let them wait a little longer," Lothiriel said with the air of an old wise woman dispensing her hard-won knowledge. "You've earned a little silence for yourself."

And for a long while neither of them spoke, watching the waves roll up on the beach and the fishing boats ride out the tide into the bay. Lothíriel produced a scarf of some kind and tied it over her long black hair when the wind whipped it back into her face a few too many times, but the two women did not move for what seemed like an eternity.

"How did you know I could not sleep?" Rhoswen asked finally, not breaking her stare from the water's edge. _Perhaps her brother told her. I spoke of it to him._

"You are a long way from home, and you have much in your heart that distresses you. I would not sleep either," Lothíriel explained. "And I asked your serving woman how you had been sleeping before you left the city as well," she admitted a little sheepishly.

"And what did Maireth say?" the White Rose wondered aloud, half-knowing what the answer would be before a word was spoken.

"She paused and then said 'Not well since Boromir left,' and little else," the princess recounted. _And that is very true,_ Rhoswen thought privately. _I have not slept well since Boromir left._ "I am very happy my cousin found you," the Amrothian woman ventured. "He has known little joy since his mother died."

For the first time since they had both sat down Rhoswen turned to look at her, surprised that she could say such a thing. "How do you know of such things? You can scarcely be older than me!"

"I am not much older than you – we were born in the same year," Lothíriel said. "I had our herald find out. I know what others tell me, what I hear and what I see. I know that my cousin was never prone to laughter or the company of women when I was a little girl and would visit the City, and now I know that he visits you as often as he can." Lothiriel glanced at her nails and rubbed one on a corner of her dress. "I know that I would not sleep either if the man I loved more than anything in the world was gone away to a place I had never heard of. And for finding that, I am glad for him."

The space between them suddenly seemed smaller, the air less cold. There was little else Rhoswen could say but "Thank you."

They sat for a little while longer, listening to the bells in the harbor mark another hour of daylight. Rhoswen took another breath of the sea-air and rose, brushing the sand-grains off the back of her dress and smoothing out her hair. "We should return now," she said decidedly, glancing back up the hill to the Citadel. Lothiriel agreed, rising and dusting herself off before showing Rhoswen back up the path she had come down.

"How did you find this place?" the princess asked as they climbed the crushed shell path back to the castle and the several distraught siblings that waited there. "Very few people know the path."

"I followed the sound of the sea and stumbled on it by accident," Rhoswen explained. Lothiriel's eyebrows shot up in surprise.

"There is knotgrass and slipweed in this stretch of land – you could have hurt yourself very badly! Best not mention that to Father or your brothers. You left your room, you wandered outside, you found the path by accident. That will be your story. Let us not let them think you were ever in any danger," the princess said with a twinkling in her eye. "It will be our secret," she added, turning to smile at Rhoswen with a trickster's kind of grin.

And in spite of all that had happened, Rhoswen had to smile. _See, you have made a friend where you thought to find none._

* * *

Erun fell upon his sister as though she had been missing for an age when Lothiriel finally produced her find in the throne room, shoes full of sand and hair blown all astray. "We had taken you for dead," he exclaimed, hugging her close with a grip that might have strangled her in other circumstances.

"I only wanted to see the sun rise," Rhoswen said, "And to be alone," she added. "I am sorry to have caused such unrest." She felt like a little girl again, berated by her father or her nursemaid for wandering away from whoever had the minding of her that day.

"But you are back again, and not harmed, and that is all that matters," another voice said. "What a welcome for a brother you have not seen these six years!"

Rhoswen turned away from Erun to see her brother Lucan, clad in the armor of Prince Imrahil's Swan Knights, his feathered helm somewhere else at the moment, and embraced him without a second thought. Even through his armor she could feel him laugh, a gauntleted hand patting her back. "I have not been gone so long as that, have I?" Lucan asked with another gust of laughter.

"No, it is I who have been gone," Rhoswen said, making her brother laugh again.

"Well, whoever it is that has been missing, they are found now, and it is time for me to return to my post," her elder brother said. "My liege lord looks at me to remind me of my duty, little Rhos, and I must obey him."

Rhoswen had not noticed Prince Imrahil when they had first entered the room, but she saw him now, very tall and dark haired in the corner of the room where his son Elphir had greeted them the day before. She drew away from her brother a little sheepishly and allowed him room to leave, taking her kiss on the forehead as if she were the little girl she felt like again.

"You have the look of a child about to be punished, Rhoswen of Anfalas. Let me assure you it is not so," the Prince of Dol Amroth said, his grey eyes bright. "My wife has been kind enough to remind me that once I was a young man who did thoughtless things, and my own children have done far, far worse."

"My lord is very kind," Rhoswen said by way of thank you – Imrahil brushed it aside, unconcerned for such formalities.

"You are my guest, Lady Rhoswen, and we count that very dear here in the Citadel. But more than a guest, you are to be a member of my family, with your marriage to my nephew," the Prince said. "You will always find a welcome here. Now," he said, smiling in that special way that only fathers have, "I would be a poor host indeed if we did not feed you after your long sojourn into our pasturelands. Have food brought to Lady Lothiriel's rooms," he said, addressing one of his servants, adding, "And make sure my daughter and my niece are not disturbed there."

* * *

So now we've met the _normal _branch of Boromir and Faramir's family. Aren't they lovely? I think they're lovely. I hope everyone else does, too.

Just think of it. This time last year I was in the place where W.B Yeats wrote that poem at the beginning of the chapter. There's so much of Ireland in this chapter it's almost not even funny—the seashore especially reminds me of Galway. And how could I resist working in a reference to swans?

Well, dear readers, school has started up again in full force, and once more I'm surrounded in the familiar whirlpool of exams, papers, and lesson planning. I only hope I can keep up my promise to update at least once a month.


	18. Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Hope is the thing with feathers  
That perches in the soul,  
And sings the tune without the words,  
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;  
And sore must be the storm  
That could abash the little bird  
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land,  
And on the strangest sea;  
Yet, never, in extremity,  
It asked a crumb of me.

- Emily Dickinson

* * *

It was the sleep that helped the most – as was customary for a yet unmarried woman living as a guest in another's house, Rhoswen began sharing Lothíriel's bed. Having another human beside her stilled her sleeplessness a little, if it stilled little else. Imrahil's daughter was unlike anyone Rhoswen had met in the city, with a boundless energy and an unbridled passion that Rhoswen was quite sure the City of Guard seldom saw in its women. She was never still, and hated to sit and sew as her mother, the Lady Heledirwen, often wished her to. But Rhoswen could not help but like Lothíriel – every day was an adventure, with something new to show or another story to share. Even if she did not outwardly show it, Rhoswen found herself being drawn out of her shell even as the weather turned still colder.

But something still struck Lothíriel as very wrong about the White Rose of Gondor. Every step was too cautious, each comment carefully measured. _Surely she was not always thus,_ Lottie thought to herself over the top of her book, watching Rhoswen sew amidst the Princess Heledirwen's ladies, a chattering flock of mother hens all pressing the younger woman for news from the White City. _When my cousin spoke of her he described a rose in bloom, not as a bud too afraid to flower. Did that woman leave when he did?_

Nearly everything she knew of Rhoswen she knew from Faramir's letters, letters written every month and carefully relayed all the way from Ithilien to Dol Amroth, arriving with stained outer covers and faded ink. The Steward's reports and all the manner of bureaucratic blustering went to Father's desk and the council chambers, and Faramir's letters, always eloquent and sometimes even tinged with humor, were carried straight to her mother's chambers to be shared with the whole family. Together the correspondence formed enough of a picture for the children of Imrahil to understand what was going on in Minas Tirith.

And at the end of last summer, they had begun to fill with news of this Rhoswen, this lady from Anfalas who Uncle Denethor was determined should wed Boromir, despite a difference in age that would make most sane men shameful to even consider. How Lothíriel loved hearing of all the trouble her big, strong cousin was going through in the name of love! _"You must meet her, Lothíriel. It is essential,"_ Faramir had written in the spring, after the End-Year. _"She is all that is good and agreeable in the world, and makes Boromir moreso with every hour she spends with him. Once I despaired of his becoming exactly like Father, but she gives me hope with every smile and laugh she coaxes out of him. He is a different man for her sake."_

Lothíriel and her brothers did not speak often of Uncle Denethor, but when they did, it was with hushed voices and hurried glances to make sure their father did not hear. Prince Imrahil would tolerate no spiteful speech against his brother-in-law, even if his children would argue (and they did) that Denethor, through his single-minded spite, had deprived them of their aunt and was still depriving them of their cousins. If anyone could prevent the existence of another man like him, Lothíriel knew without reserve she would follow them to the gates of Mordor itself if it would help.

So if Rhoswen could not tell her of her problems, she knew she would find someone who would.

"My lady!" a very flustered Lucan answered, opening the door and stepping quickly aside when he saw his master's daughter in the corridor. "Is something wrong?"

"No, Sir Lucan, though I thank you for your diligence. Is your brother within? I have questions I must ask of him." Imrahil's daughter smiled sweetly and waited with patience in the doorway.

Lucan nodded curtly, recovering from his shock and gesturing her inside, leaving the door conspicuously open and letting a little of the heat from the small room out into the hallway.

"Any help I can give you is yours, Lady Lothíriel," Erun said, rising from his chair and bowing slightly. "Will you sit and talk?" he asked, gesturing to the chair where Lucan had been sitting. His brother remained near the fireplace, as if that was where he had been the whole time.

Lothíriel smiled, sitting down graciously, a little more ladylike than she would normally have been in other quarters, perching on the edge of the seat. "Little has been said to me of your sister's illness, Lord Erun, and as she is here longer and longer, I wonder what you think she may gain from being in the Citadel that Minas Tirith would not afford her also."

Lucan's eyes darted to Erun, exchanging a knowing glance, and Erun smiled thinly. "In truth, Lady, I had hoped she would find company in the Citadel, from others such as yourself. She has few friends her own age in the City, and those that claim her company..." he broke off. "You are nearly family," he amended in an explaining tone, and Lothíriel nodded knowledgeably. _Do I myself not know what it is like to be surrounded by people who smile at you one day and seek to supplant you another?_

"Consider it done, my lord," she said, rising from her chair and turning towards the door before another thought arrested her. "The Lady Rhoswen does not like idleness, does she, Lord Erun? I cannot say that in the week that she has been here I have ever seen her without employment of some kind."

Erun chuckled. "No, she does not. Our sister desires always to have her hands busy. In useful work," he amended. Lothíriel quirked an eyebrow, inviting him to elaborate. "You must understand, Lady, that our house is a good deal smaller than yours or your uncle's, and the role of the mistress encompasses a good deal more. To be mistress of the castle in Anfalas means that one must supervise and conduct the servants, even perhaps helping them in thier work. In the City women are raised to be pretty, not useful. It is not a change that suits her."

"I, too, do not find joy in idleness," Lothíriel expressed. "I will do what I can to see she is not without…useful work." she paused, studying Erun's face. "And she is not usually so silent, is she, my lord?" she asked, to neither Lucan nor Erun in particular.

"Once she was very much like you, Lady," Lucan said, almost reverently.

"What happened?" the princess of Dol Amroth asked with interest. For this Lucan had no answer, looking at his brother, still staring at the fire.

"The man she loved was called away, and the first flush of a lover's summer gave way to the autumn of a world at war," Erun said, darkly poetic. "And for too long before that she had hidden her true self."

_We are not so different, Rhoswen and I - I also know what it is like to be hidden_, Lothíriel thought privately, nodding to Erun and taking her leave after the usual pleasantries had been exchanged. _And I know what it takes to step outside one's hiding place._

_

* * *

_

Rhoswen had not been inside a kitchen for months, and as she descended into the spacious, stone-lined room that held the moving, beating heart of the Citadel of Dol Amroth, she remembered why in her first months at Minas Tirith she had missed it so. Everything in kitchens seemed so alive, a festival of movement and activity. No one's hands were idle, and there was a good-natured hum in the air, with bits of laughter breaking into the constant clamor of bread dough hitting tables, pots clanging and the slow hiss of a full lamb roasting over the great kitchen fire.

Lothíriel had not said why they were going to the kitchens, and Rhoswen had not asked. The careless grace with which she had suggested the mission told Rhoswen this was some errand for her mother, perhaps to suggest something for dinner or complain about a roast. Then they would return upstairs for music and perhaps to read something. That was how many of Lothíriel's days went.

Lothíriel wound her way through the elaborate dance of people with expert grace, leading Rhoswen through the kitchen and down a set of small stairs to the larder, a long, dark room full of stone shelves, most of them covered in bowls and bags, the summer harvest waiting to be used during the long winter ahead. Lothíriel pulled one down from a shelf, checked its' contents and smiled, showing the large bowl to Rhoswen.

"The last of the cherries," she said, her smile widening as Rhoswen inspected the fruits."They will keep no longer, and I thought it might be good respite for us, to simply sit and bake a pie. They will leave us alone," Lothíriel said, gesturing to an errant kitchen maid, retrieving a pan of butter and watching the two ladies with a distanced eye. "I was often here as a child."

Rhoswen nodded, sitting down on a low stool while Lothíriel fetched another two bowls, one for the cherry pits and another to divide the sweet little fruits between the two of them. Returning with her quarry, the Lady of Dol Amroth sat down, poured half the cherries into the large low pan she'd found for Rhoswen and silently began pulling the pits out of the cherries, her fingers quickly staining with juice.

It was a simple process, and apart from the occasional clatter of heavy tools upstairs, very silent. It was the first real peace Rhoswen had felt for a long time, with no need to make idle chatter or listen to anyone else's. The cherries slipped through her hands easily, and the bowl on the floor between them slowly started to fill with cherry pits. The carmine red of the cherry juice worked its way up her fingers and under her nails, some of the juice spurting out of the fruit to stain her apron. Left to her own devices, her mind wandered in and out of locked rooms, thinking about things she had for so long kept prisoned inside.

And before she knew it, her eyes were wet with tears, slowly filling her eyes and making her vision blur. Her hands slipped in the stoned cherry soup at her fingertips, fumbling with the next little fruit until she found her hands were shaking so badly that she stopped and merely cried, tears slipping off her face into the bowl below. She cried until she found she could cry no more, the tears tapering off and the sobs quite worn out. It was enough. And there was Lothiriel's hand on her shoulder, quietly resting in solidarity and freindship. Rhoswen swallowed ungracefully and sniffled.

"I suppose I have quite ruined the cherries," she said sadly.

"You have ruined nothing. Sweet things always taste better with a little salt," Lothiriel said, squeezing her shoulder. Quite suddenly, Rhoswen leaned into her, a gesture reserved for mothers, and, surprising for Rhoswen, Lothiriel held her close.

"The cherries will wait, if you need cry more," she said kindly. Rhoswen shook her head. "Then let us bake the rest of the pie, and you may tell me all you wish to about life," Lottie offered helpfully.

Rhoswen nodded, smiling and finding another tear in her eye. "I should like that very much."

She spoke of how this reminded her of home, of how much she had missed working in the kitchen when she first arrived in the city, how it was not lady-like and would not do for the wife of the future Steward. She spoke of Serawen and all her false council, how she had wished to marry Boromir and was now married to Hirluin, a man who would now spend the rest of his life with a woman determined to make him nothing more than a cuckold. Rhoswen spoke about things she didn't know she had words for, all the while her hands slipping in the sticky, sweet viscera of the cherries. "I looked at Serawen and for the first time I hated her. Truly hated her. She had what I wanted and was going to throw it away."

"And what do you want?" Lothíriel asked, interested in the friendliest of ways.

Rhoswen sighed heavily, collecting the thoughts that had caused such a deluge. "I want to be married already. I want Boromir home to keep me company and see our children grow. I want to take care of my own children and not someone else's. It grows so cold, and I want him here where I know he's safe and warm. I want him here," Rhoswen sobbed, closing her eyes and leaning into Lothíriel's embrace.

_Cry now, Rhoswen, and no one will judge you here,_ the Amrothian woman said silently, petting Rhoswen's hair back from her face. _Cry where someone will be here to take care of you._

"Why have I not cried before?" Rhoswen wondered aloud, clinging to the arm Lothíriel held tight around her chest.

"You had no friend to cry with," Lothíriel explained, pressing her cheek into her companions's hair, where just for a moment, Rhoswen felt a wet trickle of tears on her scalp. _My friend_, she thought to herself, smiling bitterly. _My friend_.

They sat for a long while in silence, two women who needed nothing more than the reassurance of each other's company, and finally, when Rhoswen had sighed and leaned away, tears finished, they broke apart and slowly moved back to their baking. Lothíriel gave her full control over the pastry shell for the pie, stirring the cherries into a red slurry with a practiced hand while Rhoswen unleashed the full depth of her fury at Serawen into the unsuspecting piecrust, pummeling it into soft rounds and then rolling it smooth to pinch it into a deep bowl. While the pie baked Lothíriel shared with her stories from her own childhood, filled with her mischevious older cousins and Rhoswen found herself laughing. And when, at long last, two hungry spoons were sunk through the upper crust with no regard to propriety or the desires of others who perhaps would have partaken in the pie, they both savored the sweet bite of the cherries like two people who have not eaten a good meal in a long time.

That night, Rhoswen slept soundly and without dreams for the first time since the summer.

* * *

"The fever has broken, I think," Lothíriel told a concerned-looking Erun from the shelter of the doorway to her room, where Rhoswen still lay sleeping, well past the hour she would normally have stirred from bed. "She will be better now."

"You speak of it as though she had been ill," Erun said, smiling a little as he watched his sister.

"She spoke of enemies finding weakness in her. She fears, so much, to be thought weak, for Boromir's sake."

"And what can we do for that?" Erun asked, looking at Lothíriel with hope in his eyes.

"Tell her that she is strong," Lothíriel said staunchly. "There is a strength in her she does not know yet."

* * *

After a blissful ten hours of uninterrupted rest, Rhoswen awoke with the strong desire to be outside. For the weeks she had been in Dol Amroth she had fluttered between rooms like a ghost, more a shadow than a woman, an unspoken thought. Now she wished to move into the sunlight and become real again. And Lothíriel was more than happy to oblige. Out into the sunshine they went, through the sculpted maze of hedges near the citadel and the kitchen herb gardens, both women chatting aimiably, as though they had known each other for years. (One finds that spilling a life's fears and dreams, as well as a great many tears, brings people closer together than they might have been otherwise.) Further and further out from the house they went, to paths that sometimes saw little use, the gravel that lined the walks still pristinely packed.

"And this," Lothíriel said, drawing back the gate that fenced one section of the grounds off, hidden behind a high hedge, "This was Aunt Finduilas' garden. I am told she created one much like it when she moved to Minas Tirith."

Rhoswen smiled, nodding. This plot had been taken care of, unlike the City's, but the same hand was in its design, though she supposed it would have looked much better in the summer, when the blooms were out and everything was not bolted, tired and withering.

"I tend the garden in the Tower now," she said, bending down to examine one of the plants near the garden's border. "Lady's mantle," she explained, holding up the half-hearted leaves so Lothíriel could see. "To be taken to staunch bleeding, if your courses are very bad."

Lothíriel nodded. "Explain them to me," she said, a twinkle in her eye. "All of them. I have been talking all morning and I have had the feeling you know more about any of this than I do. I want to know what you know."

Rhoswen chuckled at her friend's sudden enthusiasm and knelt down in the path, feeling among the plants until she found several specimens. "There's lemon balm and licorice, that's also for menstruation and menstrual pains. With lemon balm, one takes the leaves, and with licorice," Here Rhoswen paused and pulled the entire plant from the ground, shaking a little dirt from the root, "You use the root, here, chopped fine and ground into tea. There's raspberry here as well," she noticed, pointing to the bush further down the row, its branches dipping low over the path

"Are the berries good for anything?" Lothíriel asked, inspecting the remains of the bush's fruit. "Beside eating, that is."

"Staining your lips, if you like that sort of thing," Rhoswen said. "No, it's the leaves you want. To help…bring a child, in labor. And peppermint," she added, reaching across the path and crushing a few leaves between her fingers to release their strong scent, holding her fingers to her nose for a moment and breathing deeply.

"What is the peppermint for?" Lothíriel asked, watching her friend's expression hesitate with a small measure of amusement.

"It calms a woman and..." Rhoswen paused, shaking her head. But Lothíriel would not let the matter drop.

"Oh, you cannot end there, Rhos. And what?"

"And…stimulates…a man," Rhoswen said slowly, blushing as Lothíriel smiled and then laughed.

"Your face is so red, Rhoswen!" she crowed, still laughing. "What shame should there be in speaking of such things?"

"He is your cousin!" Rhoswen said, smiling and blushing at the same time, flustered and unsure on what to do about it.

"Oh, were we talking of Boromir alone?" Lothíriel asked, baiting Rhoswen into blushing still more. "I thought it was more of men in general that the advice should be applied. Although," she added pragmatically, "If one were to think that Aunt Finduilas planted these for Uncle Denethor one would have every right to be blushing."

"Lothíriel!" Rhoswen plead, blushing even harder and laughing at the same time, begging the other woman to stop.

"I only mean to tease, I will stop," Lothíriel promised, taking a peppermint leaf and rolling it between her fingers, crushing the smell out again. "It is a beautiful smell," she offered blandly, as if the incident were forgotten.

Rhoswen considered this and sighed, shaking her head and trying to decide how to say what she wished to. "Forgive me, Lothíriel. It is only that…only that women who speak frankly of such things have always frightened me. I never wished to become one of them."

"Serawen," Lothíriel said knowledgeably. "It is not sinful to have a knowledge of such things, only to use it outside of wedlock." She studied a nearby leaf and then asked, "Why does her marriage pain you so?"

"She married a man I loved very much as a child, and she loves him not at all. She will take command of his household and do what she wishes with it, while I try to run a household that will not always listen to me because I am not its mistress."

"Then become its mistress," Lothíriel suggested. "Simply take charge. It is not as though Aunt Finduilas is there to complain. Indeed," the Princess mused, "I imagine she would rather like it. Someone has to keep those sons of hers in line." She paused and sat back down on the bench. "Would you teach me all of it, if I were to bring you dried herbs and muslin and that sort of thing? For a box, for my dowry chest?"

Rhoswen gave half a laugh and stood up, brushing off her knees. "It is rather boring, Lottie; I do not think you would enjoy such a thing."

"Nonsense," Lothíriel objected. "If it is _half_ as interesting as today's lesson I swear to you I will be a most intrigued pupil," she offered, wagging her eyebrows and eliciting another round of laughter from Rhoswen.

* * *

I'M BACK!

For those of you following at home, an explanation: About a week before I was set to post the next update back in October, I spilled water on my computer and fried my motherboard, sending my data into the great electronic ether, where it has been residing until I got home for Christmas break and my father, wonderful man that he is, pulled it all off my hard drive for me. So the story is back, but updates in the future may be sporadic as I start my student teaching. (Lots of papers to grade, little time for writing.)

So thank you, to all of you, for following the story even when it wasn't being updated and for reminding me, with your continued comments, that I was missed. It was very, very appreciated.

Ah, Lottie. The outlet for all my misused dirty humor. She makes my day sometimes. I have a lot of really great chapters coming up, and I might post some a lot quicker so I can get some of the finished chapters out there for you all to read!

Again, thanks so much for being wonderful friends and readers.


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

* * *

_Whose woods these are, I think I know;  
His house is in the village, though.  
He will not see me stopping by to watch his woods  
Fill up with snow._

-Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, Robert Frost

* * *

Three times thirty days had he ridden, three full rises of the moon and three falls, through a steadily deepening cold at night and a wind during the day that grew more and more bitter as he made his way North along roads that Men had not used in earnest in centuries. And now he was here, in the part of the world that was once Arnor, and then Rhudaur, and now, somewhereabouts, was called Rivendell, in the old tongue of the Elves, Imaladris. Many could tell him of it, the great tales that seemed more like fairy stories when he heard them, full of elves who could hear a fox whisk away a mouse in a windy forest and whose voices, the stories said, could charm a man to drown himself. But few, so few, could say where it might be found.

_Near the river,_ they all said. _Stay near the river._ And he had done that, departing from the road at Swanfleet and following the great path of the Greyflood up to where it divided. Which way then none could tell him – One man said North, along the Hoarwell, and another East, back towards the mountains, along the Loudwater.

Boromir looked at the widening fork in the river and sighed, feeling hopeless for the first time in a long time. All throughout the journey he had held on to hope, just as he had held onto Rhoswen's necklace, now safe beneath his tunic.

A breath of breeze flew past his face, and with it, the sound of voices. Boromir turned around, startled, but there was no one there. _What was that?_

The whispering continued still, stronger now. Boromir remembered one of the farmers he had passed along the way, a dark-haired, short-shouldered man who looked up in wonder at the princely figure on his horse and made no move except to let his mouth drop open, the very picture of a man seeing something out of legend. In that man's humble little kitchen he had heard many stories, but none that haunted him now more than the one about this river. "Loudwater, the people 'ereabouts call it, and not withou' reason," the man said, nodding seriously. "Sometimes the river speaks. Nobody 'ere understands it, but you mark me, it's that elven lord, Elrond, up in his big 'ouse what's doing it. Bendin' it te'is will."

He had not believed it then, but he believed it now – the river was whispering, and not in the way that rivers usually whisper, in their watery voices falling over rocks and around earthy bends, carrying fish and leaves down to the Sea. No, this was a man's voice – or an elf's voice, if his farmer friend could be believed. They did not speak overmuch of Elves in Gondor, except by way of history, when the story of the First War of the Ring was told. Yes, Boromir knew of Gil-galad and his commanders, of Celeborn the Wise and Elrond Half-elven his herald, but as nothing more than names. Even their dwelling places were secret still.

He urged his horse across the fording place, the animal just as skittish as Boromir felt. This was not a place where humans dwelt. For a while after the river the whispering stopped, replaced only by an eerie silence and the whispering of the wind. There was a path, or what he thought was a path, and onward he followed it, trusting that whoever, whatever lived here was not so unkind that they laid false trails to traps and snares. Several times he heard trees rustle, as if something were following him, but on close inspection, nothing was there, at least to his eyes.

And suddenly, in the midst of this strange silence, he heard singing on the path ahead. He did not know of what it was they sang; they taught a little of the elvish speech in Gondor, and then only to be savored by scholars and historians. Faramir knew it better than he. But the tone he knew well enough; mocking, laughing at him. Finally they changed to a language he recognized, the Westron of his native tongue.

"Boromir, Boromir, where are you bound  
With your horn of silver and your shield so round?  
Do you go to the mountains, do you seek for the coast?  
Are you looking for the tramplings of a vast and evil host?"

Was it only a dream, the desire to hear a human voice again? Or was someone actually speaking to him? "Imaladris!" Boromir said into the darkness, looking around and still seeing no one. "I am seeking for Imaladris."

Suddenly bodies dropped from the trees and landed, catlike, on the ground near him, springing up to reveal tall, lithe figures with long hair and elegant bows to hand. "Many seek for the House of Elrond the Half-elven with black designs," one of them accused. "What business have you in Imaladris?"

"I seek for counsel," Boromir said, bewildered.

"And why do you bring weapons here, to the last Homely House?" another voice asked.

"The road is long from Gondor, and many foes are still upon it," The Captain-Heir said defensively. The elves conferred amongst themselves for a moment, at least one voice rising to an angry pitch – they were arguing over him, it seemed. Finally one of the figures, slightly shorter than the others, stepped forward – a woman, so it seemed.

"Peace," she said, studying Boromir with intent eyes. "I think he means what he says." She was tall, taller even than Boromir, who was accounted nearly a giant by his own people, a reminder of the days when the Numenorean blood was strong in Gondor and for a man to be closer to seven feet was not uncommon. Her hair was a bright blonde seldom seen in his own country, or even among the Rohirrim. But more than that about her Boromir could not tell – her age was lost to him, and he had no knowledge of how her voice might sound were she from some other elven enclave. "Rinnelaisse I am called," she said, shifting her bow from one hand to the other so she might hold up an open palm in a sign of greeting. "This is my brother, Legolas, and the other two are Elladan and Elrohir. You will forgive us our gatekeeping – the Secondborn seldom enter our domains."

Boromir swallowed, partly from nervousness, and replied, "We do the same in Gondor."

She gestured to a path that Boromir could have sworn was not there when he had looked at the spot. "Will you follow?" she asked, springing off into the woods with an impossibly light step, leaving Boromir to follow after her, spurring his mount to keep up.

She led him to a hidden copse where several horses were waiting, jumping lightly into the saddle and waiting for him to catch up. Further into the woods they went, the silence unnerving to Boromir. Even the birds here seemed to have the strange reserve that his guide, this…Rinnelaisse, exhibited.

Deeper and deeper into the woods they rode, the air around them close and strangely warm, the light from between the leaves a curious golden red, tinged by the autumn colors of the leaves. The silence did not seem so eerie here, or so oppressive. But perhaps that was the company in which he rode as much as anything else.

Rinnelaisse paused a short ways ahead of him and turned back, beckoning him forward. "Behold," she said, gesturing with an open palm to the space ahead of her, "Imaladris, the last homely house."

At first glance, the landscape that unfolded before Boromir's eyes looked too pretty to be real. Softly folded into the river's valley was a house of grand design, almost a part of the land rather than the articfice of a builder's hand. But that, he supposed, was the elves' way, to make what was unnatural seem, by its very being, natural. Dol Amroth, they said, was built by elves of old, and that city looked very different from Minas Tirith. The waterfall cutting its way through the rocks set a soft spray out over the scene, catching the sunlight and sending a strangely, otherworldly glitter into the air.

The elf-maid, he was sure, was watching his childish abandon with amusement, but he did not care. In this moment, he was content merely to be in awe.

They received him at the gate with a courtliness that amazed him, the forms and figures practiced for centuries. Taking his horse, someone lead him to his rooms and drew a bath while another laid out a loose robe for him to undress and take his ease. His clothes were freshened while he was in the bath, waiting for him when he returned from his tub, dripping wet and a good deal cleaner than when he had first entered it. The servants were gone now, but then, he had lingered a good deal longer in the bath than was normal, content for the first time in months to simply let his guard down and sleep. Night had fallen on Rivendell in his absence; a lamp and tray of food had been laid by, and Boromir was suddenly struck with a desire to explore.

The halls of Rivendell, if indeed they could be called that, were curiously lit, a moonlike sheen coming from the polished surfaces of stone and wood. Rooms beyond rooms the house unfolded, flights of stairs leading to porticos and beautiful vistas onto the waterfalls and the river below. It truly was a fairy-house.

And some rooms, it seemed, had no purpose at all but to honor the dead. In one room there was on a plith a great elven spear, and in another, a statue of a story Boromir could not name, a man receiving on bended knee a favor from a fair lady while at her back, another man looked away in grief. But the last room that Boromir came into was different – there were pictures on the wall, paintings of a story that Boromir knew well, and had known from boyhood – the tall darkness of Sauron, and the single shining light of the armored Isidur. Casting his eyes about the room, Boromir saw with surprise there was already someone here.

The figure looked up from his book politely, and Boromir was for a moment taken aback.

"You are no Elf!" he said, immediately regretting his haste and poor manners. Dwarves he had seen in Imaladris, and Elves in plenty, but no Men. And here one was where he least expected, in this room that seemed in homage to one of the great Kings, Isildur Shadowslayer.

"The Men of the South are welcome here," the dark-haired stranger said, gesturing with an open hand. Boromir nodded, wondering how many among the Elves already knew his purpose in coming here. _I feel as if some can already see my soul._

But he had said 'Men of the South' and he was certainly no Gondorian himself, though he looked Numenorean enough, with his dark hair and piercing eyes. Even seated, too tall was he to be a man of Dale, and too dark to be of the Rohirrim. _And Theoden said they sent no envoy. Perhaps this is one of the Rangers, the last of the line of Valandil's people, _Boromir wondered to himself.

"Who are you?" He found himself asking.

"I am a friend to Gandalf the Grey," the man said evenly, the voice of a man who knows his secrets and keeps them safe. Inwardly, Boromir frowned.

"Then we are here on a common purpose. . . friend ," Boromir said, choosing this last word wisely. _Let him keep his name his own, if he wishes it so._

He knew the story of the picture well enough; it seemed everywhere he turned in Rivendell something new and intriguing was waiting to be seen and explored by eyes that had not seen it a hundred times before. He stepped away from the painting and his gaze fell to the statue behind him; a woman, carrying a shield on which was laid (reverently, over a soft cloth) the pieces of a broken sword. Boromir felt his heart beat faster, sighing in wonderment. Since childhood he had heard of this blade, and now, here it was, merely sitting in this place.

"The shards of Narsil! The blade that cut the ring from Sauron's hand!" The temptation was too much – he picked it up, feeling the heft in his hands. This was a blade from the smithies of the Dwarves, far beneath the mountains, made for taller and stronger men than the ones who now walked the earth. _We do not make two-handed swords in Minas Tirith any longer,_ Boromir remembered, studying Narsil's hilt and running his hand along the blade's edge. His hand trembled, and the sword slipped down, biting into his finger. "Still sharp!" he whispered in amazement.

Boromir was suddenly aware that the man with the book was looking at him, studying him over the top of his book. _Was it wrong for me to pick up the sword of my kindred, my kingdom?_ The Gondorian asked himself. The stranger's eyes disturbed him, and he set the hilt back on the plinth hastily. "But no more than a broken heirloom," he added uneasily, walking quickly away. The hilt unbalanced and fell away from its resting place; Boromir paused for a moment, remembering the man's keen-eyed gaze, and walked quickly away, back through the maze of elaborately sculpted arches and domes to the room that had been provided for him. Taking a quick drink from the ewer of water at his bedside he sat down, still a little dazed. He, Boromir, son of Denethor, had touched – had held, even!—the Sword of Kings, the sword that was broken.

_The sword that was broken, _he remembered, the dream coming back to haunt him afresh. _Seek for the Sword that was Broken, in Imaladris it dwells. __There shall councils be taken, stronger than Morgul-spells. There shall be shown a token that doom is near at hand, for Isildur's Bane shall waken, and the Halfling forth shall stand._

_Is this the sign of the Doom of Men?_ Boromir wondered to himself as he prepared to go to sleep. _We have no kings to wield that sword again._

_

* * *

_

They would send for him, they told him, when it was time for the councils to begin. He slept until he could sleep no more, as he had not slept since childhood, and rose to find himself rested and quietly content.

There was a garden outside his window, full of the golden colors of fall and a haunting fragrance, reminding him quietly of Rhoswen, in a certain way. _She would want me to tell her of it_, Boromir thought to himself, pulling on his boots and wondering, in his own private way, how they had gotten them so clean. _She will scold me if I cannot tell what flowers they grow here._

_And what I would do to hear her voice now, even if it were to scold me_, he thought with a smile. Descending the stairs into the garden, he had to smile again; there was no way he could remember all these shapes and colors and smells, had no way of even knowing what Rhoswen would know and what she would not.

"Do you like it here, Man of Gondor?" a woman's voice asked, musical and sweet. Boromir turned to see an elf-maiden standing in the shadow of an ivy arbor, studying him with the perceptive, quiet gaze common to all the elven folk he'd seen.

"I was thinking of home, Lady," Boromir said. "My betrothed is waiting for me there. I was only considering how much she would love this place."

"She is fond of flowers, your betrothed?" the woman asked.

"She is that," Boromir said with a smile, remembering the first day he and Rhoswen had begun their acquaintance, in his mother's garden, after his father had shouted at them both. "Fond of flowers and all manner of growing things. I was only trying to remember it all," he said, gesturing around him, "To tell her of it when I return home."

" Had we time I would tell you of the flowers and their names," the woman said with a smile. "But the hour grows late, and I was bidden to come here by my father. He is anxious the council will start soon and bids that all be gathered in the chamber."

Her father…so the Lord Elrond has a daughter. _And fair she is to look upon, too,_ Boromir thought to himself. _Too fair for me, I think; her beauty stills my heart, not stirs it._

"Lead me, Lady," He said courteously, bowing and following her silent steps.

* * *

"Strangers from distant lands, friends of old, you have been summoned her to answer the threat of Mordor. Middle earth stands upon the brink of destruction; you will unite or you will fall," The lord and master of Rivendell pronounced direly. "Each race is bound to this fate, this…one doom." He paused, and turned to a person in the circle whom Boromir had not given much mind – a person much like a child in stature. "Bring forth the ring, Frodo."

The child-man stood, and approached the plinth in the center of the circle as a man might approach the executioner's block, setting upon it a simple circlet of gold and then quietly retreating back to his seat beside Mithrandir.

"So it is true," Boromir whispered to himself. Over and over in his mind the dream turned and twisted, a steadily swimming fish in a river of thoughts that refused to find the net and let itself be pulled free, meaning evading the mind that sought it. Isildur's bane, and the doom of men, and here it was, sitting before him, produced from a hobbit's pocket.

"In a dream," he began, rising and brushing a hair from his face, "I saw the eastern sky grow dark. But in the west a pale light lingered. A voice was crying "Your doom is near at hand. Isildur's bane is found. And this is Isildur's bane," he whispered.

Suddenly, he heard a voice, coming from no one in the circle, it seemed but from – could this really be? – from the ring itself. _You could be great, Boromir, greater than all your fathers before you. You are young, and wise, and ready. Tell them to give it to you, the One Ring. Use it to overthrow Sauron and refuse to let him rise again._

But before he could hear more of the wonderful things the ring was telling him, Mithrandir's voice cut in, deep and dark and perilous, the sky around him growing dark as he chanted words that no one knew the meaning to. A sharp-edged clarity descended for a moment on Boromir, and he drew back, his heart for a moment silent.

"Never has anyone uttered the words of that tongue here, in Imaladris," Elrond said testily, chastising Mithrandir mightily.

"I do not ask your pardon, master Elrond, for it may yet be that the Black Speech of Mordor is heard in every corner of the west. The ring is altogether evil," the wizard pronounced strongly.

_Think carefully, Boromir Swordmaster, _the voice said seductively_, _not quite a woman's voice but not a man's either._ You could save your city with this thing, this...weapon. You could save Rhoswen from any coming darkness. You could make her queen. The blood of Numenor is strong in you. You could shape it where other men have failed to._

Another voice entered his mind now, the voice of his father, before he had left Osgiliath. Overpowering, greedy, proud.

_It is rumoured that the weapon of the enemy has been found. It has fallen into the hands of the Elves. Everyone will try to claim it: Men, Dwarves, wizards. We cannot let that happen. This thing must come to Gondor. It's dangerous, I know. Ever the Ring will seek to corrupt the hearts of lesser Men. But you, you are strong. And our need is great. It is our blood which is being spilled, our people who are dying. Sauron is biding his time. He's massing fresh armies. He will return. And when he does, we will be powerless to stop him. You must go. __**Bring me back this mighty gift.**_

"But it is a gift!" he exclaimed impetuously." A gift to the foes of Mordor! " He looked around, his thoughts gaining ground, the idea growing in his mind. "Why not use this Ring?" the Captain Heir asked, eyes bright with the very thought. "Give me leave to say a little more of Gondor and the people of Elendil, for verily it is from Gondor that I have come. Long has my father, the Steward, kept the forces of Mordor at bay. By the blood of our people are your lands kept safe! Give Gondor the weapon of the enemy. Let us use it against him!" He drew a stop nearer to the plinth and said, almost privately, "For why should we suffer so much fear and doubt over so small a thing? So small and…precious a thing?"

"You cannot wield it!" the dark man from the night before said vehemently. " None of us can. The One Ring answers to Sauron alone. It has no other master."

"And what would a ranger know of this matter?" Boromir asked disdainfully, suddenly feeling upstaged. He was a scion of princes, born to rule and be heeded! No one should question his wisdom on the matters that surround heads of state.

"This is no mere ranger. He is Aragorn, son of Arathorn. You owe him your allegiance," the elf accused.

Boromir's heart stopped cold, and he looked at the man with a scantily hidden new fear. "Aragorn?" he repeated again, as if he might know the name. "This... is Isildur's heir?"

"And heir to the throne of Gondor," the elf reminded with a dangerous note in his voice.

Boromir recovered himself, drawing back a pace and scowling a little. "Gondor has no king," he said imperiously, watching Aragorn with careful eyes. "Gondor needs no king," he added in a nearly inaudible whisper.

They spoke of many things after that moment that Boromir paid little attention to except in anger. He was able to hide it, and hide it well, but the thoughts in his mind still troubled him. They would not give him the ring. He could not bring it home, could not placate his father, and Gondor, once more, would be left defenseless while the weapon of the age would be discarded like a rusty swordblade, melted down for scrap in a place it was nearly impossible to go. Of course he was going, it would have been dishonorable to refuse, but why should he help aid the destruction of the one thing that might save him?

His hand, carelessly swinging at his side, hit one of the flowers in the garden as he passed through, and the momentary pain of a thorn driving deep into the pad of his finger made him wince and look down. It was a rosebush that had deterred him, a white rosebush that now had blood on one of its petals.

The sight made Boromir freeze, the anger and ambition washed out of him. Rhoswen. He had heard that voice before, and where had it led him? To deepest dishonor and shame, and a grave injury to the woman he loved. _Besides, what need I for robes and queenly crowns? I would love you if you were the lowest foot soldier and I the lowest kitchen-maid in a small house on the first level of the city_, the memory-Rhoswen said, smiling in that way that was only hers. _Give him a chance, this Aragorn. Perhaps he is the weapon you seek._

"That is, I think, the first time I have seen a man smile at a wound," a woman's voice said, and Boromir looked up to see Rinnelaisse coming through the garden, a pack in her hands. She was coming with them, one of the nine walkers on the quest for Mount Doom. Her brother had wished to come, but she had stilled him and taken his place. An odd business, but none of his concern. As Rhoswen was none of hers.

"It is a long story," Boromir said simply. Rinnelaisse arched an elegant eyebrow and nodded mysteriously.

"Perhaps another time, then, when the fire is burning brighter and the watch is longer," she said. "Come, we must prepare. It is three months, at least, to Mordor and all must carry some burden."

_I know she speaks of supplies, but I feel burdened already,_ Boromir thought to himself, following the elven maid to prepare for their long journey southward.

* * *

Well, I start student teaching tomorrow, so as a New Year's gift to all of you and a little bit of a gift to myself I'm posting a new chapter.

And now all of you who were worrying about Boromir have a little less to worry about! I made an executive decision when I started the re-write that Boromir should have more of a part in the actual story this time around, so his part of the story will come in as an interlude every once in a while.


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

GOOD hunting! — aye, good hunting,  
Wherever the forests call;  
But ever a heart beats hot with fear,  
And what of the birds that fall?  
Good hunting! — aye, good hunting,  
Wherever the north winds blow;  
_But what of the stag that calls for his mate?_  
_ And what of the wounded doe?_

- The Forest Greeting, Paul Laurence Dunbar

* * *

The wild, yipping crowd of hounds whipped past, followed by the even wilder, laughing line of nobles, all of them following the hind that was today's quarry. Rhoswen laughed from a safe distance back, neither with Lothiriel at the front, running her horse at a near- breakneck speed, nor with her mother, the Princess, at the back, leisurely taking the air with the servants and packhorses carrying the day's picnic.

At a pause in the land where the trees grew thicker, Rhoswen flexed her back and sat up a little in her saddle. Her legs were stiff from riding, her arms were aching from holding the reins, and there was still a wide smile on her face that would not leave. It had been years since she had been allowed to ride like this, as Lothiriel was riding, more like a spirit of the forest or the daughter of Orome himself rather than a mortal woman. When she was little Rhoswen had the mastery of a pony, and when the dreaded day of twelve came, the pony had been put aside for other uses and Rhoswen was told that ladies seldom rode.

And she might have adhered to that custom, too, if Lucan had not dared her otherwise last night after dinner.

It was the Lord Imrahil's custom to be entertained after the evening meal by his family and guests - they counted much more in a person's musical gifts in Dol Amroth, and it seemed every man, woman, or child could at least warble away passably at a song or two, if they could not outright play an instrument. In all these family entertainments they had not yet asked Rhoswen to sing, during these first several weeks she had been in the city. _And I would not have wished to sing, either_, Rhoswen remembered. But last night, she had volunteered, quite of her own will and quite to the surprise of everyone else.

Setting her fingers back on the strings of her harp was like saying hello to an old friend - an old friend with creaking joints and an out-of-tune voice, but a beloved companion nonetheless. The song she chose was not a distinguished one, a simple tune she'd known from childhood that she knew Lucan and Erun would recognize, a story turned into a song that she'd made them sing many, many times. Lucan, at least, smiled and clapped louder than the rest, but Erun held back, lips drawn, as if afraid she might fall apart from the strain of singing such a song. And his brother did not help his fears any.

"Play 'Blow thy Horn, Hunter,' and I will sing it along with you!" Lucan offered merrily, catching a determined elbow in his ribs for his trouble. "What?" he asked his younger brother, who had looked particularly pained by the suggestion.

"I...only meant to say," Erun began, searching for words, "that perhaps our sister is tired and would like to –"  
"I am not tired, Erun," Rhoswen objected strongly, locking eyes with him in determination, "And I would be happy to play another… if you and Lucan will sing with me."

She knew why he had objected to the song, though no one else in the room would, save perhaps Maireth, listening at the door. She had sung it last winter for Denethor's End Year court, the drunken Steward ignoring the court's general tradition that well-born ladies did not perform to public crowds, least of all when asked by their future father-in-laws.

But this was not the End Year court - this was Imrahil's family quarters, and only family were now present, Imrahil's three sons and Lothiriel, Rhoswen's two brothers, and the Prince and Princess of Dol Amroth. Rhoswen would sing if she wished, and she did wish. The harp sent a rich chord of notes into the large gathering room and each sibling sang as he or she had been taught from childhood. "Now, blow thy horn, hunter, and blow thy horn on high! There is a doe in yonder wood, in faith she will not die. Now, blow thy horn, hunter, and blow thy horn, jolly hunter!"

As the song ended everyone clapped, but no one louder than Lothiriel, who had no small skill with a harp herself. "I shall see to it that you meet some of the musicians of the city, Rhoswen," she said when the clapping had died. "And they shall want to meet you. Perhaps you can bring a little music back to the White City. It has been many years, Yoneval tells me, since the troubadours were allowed the open roads to this country."

Imrahil frowned at his daughter. "Now is not the time to criticize your uncle's policies, Lottie."

"Well, it is true!" Lothiriel said. "Even you've said it! Since Aunt Finduilas -"

"We will not speak of it, Lottie!" Imrahil's voice was final, and the tension thick. For a moment the family sat in silence, no one willing to speak.

"That song has quite put me in the mood for a little sport," Lothiriel's youngest brother, Amrothos, declared, trying to distract his father and sister away from their little argument. "I think we should show our guests a little bit of the countryside while they are here, Father; a hunt would be the perfect thing and it is the season for it."

And that had been that. The huntsmen had been assembled, the woods flushed for game, and the party had ridden out with the morning fog just brushing their boots.

Rhoswen looked around to see Lottie cantering back to her, all laughter and skirts flying in the wind. She stopped and called her falcon back to her arm, handing off the bird's quarry to one of the huntsman on the ground and feeding the bird a little morsel from a pouch at her waist. "You must come to the front with us, Rhos; you are nearly in the baggage train with the luncheon!"

"I cannot ride as well as you, Lottie," Rhoswen said. "And I have no bird to hunt with," she added. She would only be in the way of those who wished to come home with their game-lines full if she were at the front, where she had no business being.

"Then you shall have mine!" Lothiriel declared. "It is the easiest thing, and Emlin is wonderfully tame. And light, too, you shall have no problem carrying her." She summoned over another of the hawk-keepers and bade him hold her merlyon Emlin while she undid the leather pad that covered her shoulder and the heavy glove that the falcon sat on to receive her treats.

"My lady, what are you doing?" Lucan asked, drawing his own horse over to the pair.

"I am indoctrinating your sister in the hunt, Sir Lucan," Lothiriel explained, maneuvering her horse so that she could tie the shoulder-pad securely on Rhoswen's shoulder. "She will take Emlin for a while." The keeper handed up the bird and the petite merlyon jumped artfully from the keeper's wrist to Rhoswen's, a sizeable weight but nothing too strenuous.

"My lady cannot be without a falcon herself," Lucan said, hastily handing his own goshawk off to another waiting keeper and untying his glove. "You shall take my bird."

Lothiriel smiled at Lucan and nodded, almost impercievably. "You are kind to offer, Sir Lucan," she said, taking the glove and leather pauldron from Lucan's waiting hands. Rhoswen watched the exchange with curiosity, noting with interest how there was the slightest of pauses as Lucan's ungloved hand touched Lothiriel's, and how the lady's eyes went directly to his, her glance full of the fear that comes of having a secret be discovered. Rhoswen looked at the petite bird on her arm and glanced back at Lothiriel.

"I think your mistress may be hiding something, Emlin," Rhoswen observed in a whisper to the merlyon.

It was oddly thrilling, have such a powerful bird at her beck and call. Emlin, she knew, was very tame, and trained well to her mistress' hand. Certainly the little merlyon had nothing on the larger peregrines that Imrahil's sons were using, and yet Rhoswen was captivated. Here in the fields and copses she was powerful, a world and rule unto herself. When the time came to bring the birds to hand and return back to the castle, Rhoswen was pleased to see the keepers had several birds on their lines that she and Emlin had caught.

Amrothos made all the fuss in the world when he noticed how proud she was of a few scraggly sparrows, demanding that they be prepared for his plate at dinner and saying all the right, courtly things at dinner, the perfect picture of the chivalrous knight that made up so many of Lothiriel's preferred stories. Of all of Lothiriel's siblings, Rhoswen found Amrothos, the youngest, the easiest to spend time with. Born a year before Lothiriel, the two were practically twins in every way, their mischevious temperaments being no exception. They shared the task of joking throughout dinner and refused to put to rest the matter of Rhoswen's sparrows until their father, seeing Rhoswen's heated face, asked his two youngest to refrain from taking the matter any further.

There was a letter waiting for Lothiriel when they returned after the evening meal, passed no doubt from Princess Heledirwen's hands to her daughter's – the wax was broken and the folds uncreased. Lottie opened the letter, scanned a few lines, and stood up with an excited yelp, causing Rhoswen to send her needle through her sewing (slippers for Faeldes' youngest, Tuon) a little too quickly, stabbing her finger in the process. "Is something the matter?" Rhoswen asked, choking down a yelp of her own and trying not to bleed on the delicate little shoes.

"No, Rhoswen, everything is as right as rain!" Lottie pronounced, smiling widely and practically jumping for joy. "Ivriniel is coming!"

"Who?" Rhoswen asked politely, setting her sewing aside and watching her friend spring from the room. Lothiriel apparently had not heard.

""I must tell Amrothos and Erctheion, they will want to know!" she proclaimed, rushing out the door with letter still in hand. Rhoswen stared after her, politely confused and also slightly unamused.

"But who is Ivriniel?" she asked again to the empty room, sighing when she heard no answer from any quarter and turning her attentions instead to her now brightly bleeding finger.

In the end, it was Lady Heledirwen who enlightened her, the next night after a close family dinner, when her sons had taken to their chambers, her daughter had scampered off to parts unknown and her husband was still locked away in his study with what was certainly now a cold tray of food.

"She is Imrahil's elder sister, and a favorite of Lottie's. In fact, she spoils all my children terribly. She has none of her own, and no husband to dote on, either, so she bottles up her affection until after the frost, and then she descends upon our household for the End Year. You shall like her, I think," Heledirwen said, drinking a warm posset of Rhoswen's own design, something to help the older lady sleep through what the Princess of Dol Amroth called 'aging pains.' "And she will bring her retinue with, which Lottie always loves. Are you fond of poetry, niece?"

"I know very little about it, except that sometimes it is sung, and sometimes spoken of very highly," Rhoswen said with a little laugh. "They do not have many poets in the city."

"That is because Uncle Denethor does not like poetry," Lothiriel said, finally making her presence finally and kissing her mother on the head. "It reminds him too much of Aunt Finduilas. There are a great many good and agreeable things that remind him of Aunt Finduilas," she reflected pertly, "And in consequence, he has outlawed them all and become a terrible grump. Yes, mother, a grump!" Lottie decreed hotly to her mother, who was looking on her daughter with restrained annoyance. "There are worse words I could use. He has not allowed the poets to make winter in Minas Tirith since her death, and Yoneval remembers what times they would have in the city when they were allowed there. What parties there were then!"

"Let us say no more about Uncle Denethor, precious," Heledirwen reminded her only daughter. "You may not agree with his policies but he is your uncle. And it will not do to upset your father again."

Lothiriel nodded, turning to Rhoswen and covertly rolling her eyes. She sat down next to Rhoswen and leaned in close, so that they could at least make a show of not being overheard by her mother. "The winter is the worst time to be on the road, as a troubadour, so it is customary to seek the house of a wealthy patron and stay for the season, with your pay being your lodging and, if your poetry is deemed worthy, some small stipend. But many nobles winter in the city, and if the troubadours are not allowed to enter, they have no place to work."

"But they are allowed in Dol Amroth," Rhoswen guessed, with a wide nod from Lothiriel.

"And in Belfalas, where Aunt Rin lives. Her husband was a great lover of music, but he is dead now, and Aunt Rin likes to carry on his tradition. But they do not sing in Minas Tirith any longer, and that makes a great many sad." Lothiriel frowned. "Cousin Faramir has a good voice, did you know that?"

"I can believe it, if I have not heard him sing," Rhoswen admitted. It was true, Faramir did have that quality in his voice that singers often do, a richness of tone and a depth of emotion.

"He sings sometimes when he is here. If he can come here," Lottie added sourly, "Which is not often. Our uncle wastes him on other pursuits."

"Say not 'wastes,' Lothiriel; The Tower of Guard has more pressing concerns than song," Helediriwen corrected.

_No, it is a waste,_ Rhoswen thought to herself, silently agreeing with Lottie as everyone settled back into their chairs, the conversation clearly at an end. _He wastes Boromir, who has a great love he cannot use, and he wastes Faramir, whose mind is boundless and yet bound up by war, and he wastes me, who could help him so much if he would let me. War wastes us all. Why should we not have time for songs and stories? Why should we give no space to joy and joy-filled things?_

In Dol Amroth, however, they had no shortage of joy, however much it might seem to anyone watching Imrahil's youngest child. The days until Aunt Ivriniel's arrival could not pass fast enough for Lothiriel. Rhoswen watched her sit by the window with mounting amusement, watching the usually composed young woman transform into an anxious little child awaiting a prized visit from her favorite relative.

Finally all the vain opening and closing of books and the expectant glances out the window were rewarded when a heavy clatter of hooves and cartwheels in the courtyard caught even watchful Lottie by surprise. With an excited shriek and a flying swish of skirts the princess of Dol Amroth was running pell-mell down the stairs to greet her aunt, with Rhoswen in leisurely pursuit, anxious as well to meet yet another of Boromir's relations.

The courtyard was a hive of activity by the time Rhoswen arrived there; the numerous carts and carriages from the Belfalas were all being relieved of their burdens, human or otherwise. Rhoswen saw furniture, musical instruments and several rather large chests make their way down from the heavily loaded baggage carts. It appeared that Aunt Ivriniel had brought an entire household with her.

"Rhoswen!" Lothiriel shouted across the courtyard, beckoning her friend over to one of the passenger carriages only just now being opened up. Rhoswen took her time weaving through the tumult to come and stand by Lottie's side as a woman descended from the carriage, cloak and skirt held carefully in one hand to spare her the expense of tripping out of her traveling cart. Her shoes, Rhoswen could see as she ascended, were intricately worked in silver thread, embroidered with tiny figures that must have taken days to embroider. When at last she was on the ground again, the lady opened her arms for Lothiriel and smiled.

"Is there to be no hug for your old aunt, Lottie?" she asked, hardly done with the question when Lothiriel practically hurled herself into the waiting arms, beaming. "Clearly I have been missed," Ivriniel observed wryly as she finished embracing her niece and stepped aside from the carriage. "Now, Lottie, you must tell me everything I have missed since I was here last End-Year. All the hunts, the gossip, the marriages…and you must tell me who this charming young person is," she said, her eyes alighting on Rhoswen, taking in the whole scene from a few paces away. Lottie smiled and came to stand by the young woman, taking her hand and pulling her closer with a scheming smile.

"Aunt Rin, this is your newest niece, Rhoswen. Boromir's betrothed."

Ivriniel's eyes lit up in recognition, and she took Rhoswen's hand with a smile. "Ah, yes," she said, practically grinning as she looked the young woman over, "This is the woman who will tame my sister's little Bear."

Rhoswen looked politely confused. "Little Bear?" she asked, trying to smile through her confusion.

"Yes, that was what my sister called Boromir when he was a child. Fox and Bear, that was what they were known as then. She would tell them the most marvelous stories before they went to bed, and Fox and Bear were in all of them," Ivriniel explained. "I shall have to remember them all so that you may tell them to your children. I suppose they are not so little now, are they?" she remarked to herself, taking Lothiriel's hand on one side and Rhoswen's on the other to walk inside the Prince's Citadel.

"Indeed, they are not!" Lothiriel said, winking at Rhoswen just for the pleasure of watching her blush and scowl a little at her cousin across Ivriniel.

"When last I saw them they were only six or seven," Ivriniel explained to Rhoswen, who was beginning to understand why Lothiriel loved her aunt so much. "Though I suppose my dear niece was teasing you about another matter altogether," she said mischeviously, glancing at Rhoswen.

"Lothiriel is forever teasing me about 'another matter altogether'," Rhoswen said flatly, frowning again at Lothiriel and receiving an equally silly face for her efforts.

"Well, we shall soon put her mind to other uses now that I am here. Now, where is my trouble-making little brother?" the lady of Belfalas asked loudly as they entered the Prince's throne room, directing her comment pointedly at the none-too-little brother sitting in state at the end of the hall. "I am sure he is around here somewhere, hiding from me."

Imrahil stood up with a smile as his eldest sister approached, descending his dais and opening his arms to receive her. "Still making trouble, as you see," he replied with the practiced aplomb of a sibling who has always endured this kind of joking. "It is good to have you home for End-Year, Ivriniel."

"And it is good for me to be home," the lady of Belfalas announced. "Are my nephews too busy to greet their dear old auntie, or have they conveniently hidden themselves today?"

"They are all busy, sister, on legitimate business of mine," Imrahil said with a smile. "I am sure you have much to talk about with Heldirwen and Lothiriel while you wait for them."

"And Rhoswen – let us not forget my new niece," Ivriniel said with a smile, turning back to the two young women she had walked in with. "There is, I think, a great deal I want to speak with her about, too."

* * *

Ivriniel's usual apartment of rooms had been aired out for her arrival, and now were filled with the servingmen and women that had come all the way from Belfalas with their mistress to be in Dol Amroth for the End-Year. The lady of belfalas picked her way through the buzz of people to a large anteroom where, curiously enough, they could hear the sound of instruments being tuned.

Lothiriel had told Rhoswen of her aunt's coterie of musicians and poets, but Rhoswen hadn't expected there to be so many of them – nearly a full dozen brightly clad people, men as well as women, stood up when Ivriniel walked in the room, bowing and curtseying in extravagant fashion.

"Cellinien, I am so glad to see you well," the daughter of Imrahil said, drawing the young lady closest to them up from her curtsey. "You were not yourself last End-Year, I remember. You must remember to sing for Rhoswen – She has a voice like an angel!"

"I certainly shall, my lady," the singer said, smiling at Rhoswen and giving another slight curtsey.

"Brethildir! He is the best piper in all of Middle Earth, you know." The man Brethildir bowed his head and smiled a little at the extravagant praise. Lothiriel continued in this fashion for the whole room; she knew them all well enough to inquire after their children or ailing relatives, asking to play a particular piece for Rhoswen when the chance arose.

"And Yoneval!" Lothiriel exclaimed, accepting the man's elaborate bow and kiss on the hand with surprising "Yoneval is the king of my aunt's poets."

"My lady is overgenerous with her kind words," the poet said. "I see I shall have to work on a poem for you, Lady Rhoswen; such beauty should not pass by in this world without a song to celebrate it."

Rhoswen blushed and looked at her hands. "You are very kind to say so."

The poet smiled generously. "Kind? Certainly not! Where other virtues need only demonstration, beauty must be spoken of as well. It is a pity that beauty does not rhyme with 'humility,' lady, else half my work would be done."

Rhoswen smiled almost impercievably and felt her cheeks go warm, but she said nothing more, and allowed Lottie to steer the conversation where she would after that.

There was to be a great feast in Ivriniel's honor that evening, a great festivity lasting well into the small hours of the morning, and Ivriniel sent away her nieces to 'recover the rest the road stole' as she put it. No room could contain Lothiriel today, it seemed, so Rhoswen did not follow as the high spirited Amrothian fled for the shelter of the stables and the promise of a ride through Dol Amroth's outlands. Rhoswen returned to her room and her book, quite content to spend the rest of her day musing on what Ivriniel had said about Boromir – and his mother.

Little was said of Finduilas in the City of Guard. Rhoswen knew she had married Denethor when she young, borne him his two sons and died, rather mysteriously, of a wasting disease of some kind. Ioreth, she knew, was fond of saying (when no one else was around to hear such treason) that the Steward had sapped her of her strength like a vine crushing the life out of a tree, loving her perhaps too much and choking her off because of it. Possessive was the word used, as if in seeing other people she might forget to love him. When she died, the Steward had been distraught, and never the same afterwards, a slow decline that was painful to watch for those who had known him longest, even his own sons. But Rhoswen hardly knew the woman Finduilas – she used her rooms, her garden, even some of her furniture and jewelry, and knew scarcely anything about her beyond that she had been a devoted mother, a fanatic gardener of flowers, and a very quiet woman.

_In that we must be different,_ Rhoswen thought to herself, staring at one of the tapestries in Lothiriel's room, a scene of love and courtship, a couple meeting under a bower, their hands meeting on the bark of one of the trees. _Lothiriel is right. The time for silent women is over, but we have not seen it. The men leave, and the women are left behind, and we must continue though they are gone. Ivriniel has done it, and done well. I must talk to her tonight,_ Rhoswen mused, _about a great many things. But surely a sister would speak to me about her sister._

She was beginning to see why Lothiriel loved her aunt so. Ivriniel had a perfect boldness, but then, she was the eldest child as well, and she knew that all those who were oldest among siblings, like Carnil and Boromir and Elphir, took some special responsibility or burden of leadership simply because they knew their siblings watched. _And the youngest always follows. But Lottie does not follow anyone, and I feel in my heart I should be more like her than any other woman I know._

The hall seemed strange when Rhoswen finally came down for dinner, the lamps already glowing to compensate for the earliness of the sun's setting in these colder winter months. She could not quite place the change – the smells coming up from the kitchen were known to her, and the voices and faces of Dol Amroth did not give her as much trouble as they once had. She could make her own way through a crowd now, remembering a few names where everyone seemed to always remember hers. Sitting down next to Lothiriel, she still had a perplexed look on her face.

"What has changed?" she asked quietly, searching the crowd of nobles still trying to find their places in the hall.

"Well, we have an extra chair next to Father for Aunt Rin, and the seats have been a little put off for that…we are having swan, which is Aunt Rin's favorite dish and which the kitchens almost never make except for when she visits….oh, and Yoneval and the others are up in the loft, tuning!" Lottie said helpfully, pointing to a little balcony that Rhoswen had never taken notice of before. That was the change—the sound of instruments adding a pleasant hum to the background of quiet chatter and laughter throughout the hall. Evidently they would accompany dinner.

Imrahil said little before the start of dinner, only wishing everyone to remember his beloved sister and pay their respects as they saw fit. Several, Rhoswen saw, had brought gifts, a sure sign that they had some favor to ask of Ivriniel. She accepted them over the course of the meal with good grace, listening as both lords and ladies brought their suits. The men, she could see, were grimmer, asking of trading portions and water rights and the sightings of corsairs closer and closer along the coast.

When the subtleties and sweets were finally being cleared away, and the servitors were coming around with the sweeter mountain wines, two or three from the gallery began singing in well-tuned unison a song about a knight who was trying to tempt a country girl into loving him. The tune was not terribly rowdy, but enough to make the listeners laugh while some of them changed places, going to talk to friends now that the pageantry of the feast was finished. Erun and Lucan, she could see, were further down the table engaged in some serious discussion of one sort or another with some of the lords who had spoken with Ivriniel about the corsairs earlier. Lothiriel and Amrothos were down on the floor amidst the milieu who would later be dancing; Lottie caught Rhoswen's eye and gestured her down, but Rhoswen shook her head, trying to explain (as if Lottie could read her lips) that she was a very poor dancer.

Finally Lottie gave up as the music started, pulling her brother along with her into a complicated maze of circles, spirals and spins as the music grew faster and faster, dizzying even for Rhoswen to watch. As the song ended, rhoswen noticed Lottie neatly switch places with her brother to end closer to where Lucan stood talking with one of Ivriniel's supplicants. As the next song began, Lothriel seemed to catch Lucan's eye, and the Anfalassian man drew himself into the dance, carefully insinuating himself into the figures to come closer and closer to Lottie. Rhoswen, watching from the trestles, couldn't help but smile. Was it

"You don't dance, Rhoswen?" Ivriniel asked, coming up to the younger woman with a cup of wine in her hands and sitting down with a heavy sigh.

"Lottie tried to teach me, but I don't have the feet for it," Rhoswen answered with an apologetic smile. "I'd rather just listen to the music rather than remember steps."

"Skill grows with practice," the Lady of Belfalas said knowledgably. "And now that we are quite alone in this crowd of people and my niece is off dancing with that handsome brother of yours, you can tell me a little about yourself without Lottie interrupting. She tells me you are a woman of the coast."

"I was born in Anfalas," Rhoswen answered. "My father is the lord there; I had never known any other place until my father decided I should marry."

Ivriniel nodded. "Lottie also tells me you are quite the gardener, and have been teaching her herbal lore. She says you are very accomplished for one so young."

"Lottie gives her praise very freely," Rhoswen said with a blush.

"My niece is a good judge of people; she gives her praise where it is due," the older woman corrected. "Come, there must be something else about yourself you think that I should know. Or should I repeat all that the gossip from the city tells me about you? I know that you sing, and play the harp very well, and that you are a great comfort to the sick…I know that you were very melancholy after my nephew left for his…councils, and that you love him very much."

"I do not know how the gossips know that, but it is all true," Rhoswen admitted.

"I was married, when I was very young, to a man who was a great deal older than me, too," Iviriniel said meditatively. "Like you, I had never met him before our betrothal, but on our wedding day, he was little more to me than a face across a table. It is good that you should love Boromir, before that time. It seems Denethor has some regard still for the needs of others, to insist that you stay in the City until the marriage," she considered. _Ah, but he had other reasons, too_, Rhoswen said, remembering the last night she had spent with Boromir, awkwardly sharing his room without sharing his bed. _We merely found a way to love around them._

Ivriniel continued. "My father was a powerful man, and only interested in consolidating his power. I was the oldest, and it probably should have been me that married Ecthelion's son. But he only had eyes for Finduilas, and so Finduilas he was given."

Rhoswen gave a small laugh. Ivriniel nodded wryly. "Yes, I know, it is hard now to imagine Denethor having eyes for anyone. Once he was a younger man, though, and as all young men are." She smiled fondly. "I was glad to see my sister happy, for I think she loved him, as best as she was able. My husband was a good man, but I do not ever think I loved him."

"What was his name?" Rhoswen asked, interested to hear what this aunt of Boromir's would say.

"Lord Hithwon, of Belfalas," Ivriniel repeated, running the name over her tongue. "He was a good deal older than me when we were betrothed – a device of my father's to gain his trust and keep his loyalty. I was only twenty-two when we were wed, and he was nearly fifty. Very experienced in the ways of the world," she remembered grimly. "But that shall not be a problem for you as it was for me," she said, smiling and patting Rhoswen's hand. "Unlike me, you will have seen a little of men."

Rhoswen caught the older woman's eyes and smiled sadly. That much was true, however shameful it might still be in her mind. How many times had she stripped and dressed sick men, seen their bodies and what they could do? The simple mechanics of the marriage act were common knowledge, but the real details of the thing – that was something little maids put their heads together and whispered over, puzzling out how it all _worked_. But Rhoswen had seen what a simple touch did to a man's parts, and the shame that followed for many, that their bodies should betray what they had sought to keep hidden, that they desired the one woman they should never even thought of wanting.

"Is it as bad as they say?" she asked, in a moment of sudden desire for candor.

"It will not be for you what it was for me," the older woman said truthfully. "You have a knowledge like my sister had. Paying your marriage debt will come easily to you. And my nephew loves you. He will be kind. My husband forgot I was still a girl in many ways on our marriage night," Ivriniel's face was cold now, and she took another sip of her wine, as if she might need the fortifying effects against the memory. "I'm an old woman now, and I'll not lie by telling you my husband was the only man to share my bed, but he's the only one who made my blood run cold at the prospect. That's probably why we never had any children," she mused candidly. She glanced over at Rhoswen, whose face, the young woman was sure, was full of a mixture of horror and surprise that Ivriniel would speak so freely about those things. "But that has been both good and bad. I have more time for the young people and their songs, and now we must get that horribly sad expression off your face! You are young, and you have far better things to be doing than listening to an old woman like me."

"Indeed, I have not!" Rhoswen defended sweetly, making Ivriniel laugh.

The older woman collected herself and smiled, appraising Rhoswen again. "I do not think I have words to describe how happy I am to finally meet you, Rhoswen of Anfalas. I loved my sister, but she was silent, and no match for her husband's will. I see a willfulness in you that gladdens me. I think it is my niece that brings it out in you."

"I did not know willfulness before I meet Lothiriel," Rhoswen admitted.

"Then let us hope you remain with us her in the City of Swans a good while longer!" the lady of Belfalas exclaimed. "I should like you to go home to Minas Tirith and terrorize my brother- in-law, for all the good earth knows he needs it!"

Rhoswen laughed, going to bed that night trying to think of ways she might terrorize the Steward, each idea more terrible and ribald than the last. Falling asleep with visions of half-naked dancing girls and tendrils of silk swirling through her mind, she could vaguely make out Boromir on the edges of her fantasies, smiling not like the bear he had been as a child, but with the hungry, heated grin of the wolf.

* * *

Well, two months of student teaching have come and gone, and in week, I'll be packing my life off to the high school. Egads, where does that time go? At any rate, I'll be teaching creative writing over there to at least sixty 11th and 12th graders who are probably only taking the class 'cause it's easy, and I want to at least seem like I have a writing life outside of grading their papers.

Since this chapter was written over the course of about three months, it wouldn't surprise me if it makes next to no sense. And please, if you see a glaring grammatical error, please let me know. I'm an English teacher now – I'm supposed to catch these things in my own writing and I don't want to seem like a hypocrite.


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

….Then, lest

One moment of the sea's repose we lose,

Nor furnish Fancy with a thousand themes

Of unimagined sweetness, let us gaze

On this serenity, for as we muse,

Lo! all is restless motion: life's best dreams

Give changing moods to even halcyon days.

- An Ocean Musing, by Henrietta Cordelia Ray

* * *

Ivriniel's arrival came just as winter was setting in – a dusting of snow swirled around in the courtyards of the Swan Citadel, pushed by the constant and bitterly cold wind from the ocean. Gone were the daily walks of the autumn and the outside lessons; instead, Rhoswen and Lothiriel placed their chairs in front of the fire, smelling and crushing herbs where they could not be disturbed by the wind. Today Lottie was reviewing what she knew – the cloth in front of her was spread with sprigs and bundles, which she would have to smell or identify on sight to pass Rhoswen's test.

Rhoswen surveyed the table, identifying each one mentally as Lottie collected her thoughts. Comfrey, goldenseal, licorice, raspberry leaf, rose petal, honey (a small jar stood on the table, an easy answer for Lottie to give), rose hips, lavender, valerian, john's wort, skullcap, burdock, fenugreek... and the list went on. Aunt Ivriniel walked slowly over to their table, surveying the spread of herbs with a smile. "I remember doing this with Finduilas before she packed her dowry chests for the White City," she recalled. "She did not know what they would have there, so she brought everything. One would have thought she were planning to go into a city infected by plague! Never mind that the greatest houses of healing available to men were already in Minas Tirith."

"Do you know any of these, Aunt Rin?" Lottie asked, trying very hard (as Rhoswen could plainly see) to delay her attempt at identification.

"Just one," Ivriniel said, picking up a dried white flower and twirling it between her fingers. "Simbelmynë," she said, rolling the Rohirric name over in the strange dialect of that country. "The Ever-mind, I think it is also called. If you crush the flower and steep it, it produces a tea that will bring back memory. Fin told me that when I was home for End-year, several years after I was married. I was afraid my husband was losing his mind."

"Was he?" Lottie asked, intrigued – Ivriniel didn't talk about Uncle Hithwon much.

"Yes, as all old men do," the lady of Belfalas said bitterly. "Fin warned me not to use too much of it – it was expensive – is still expensive! - and she did not have much of it."

"But I have heard there is simbelmynë all over Rohan," Lottie said, confused. "Why should it be so expensive, if it has only to come here?"

"It is a flower for graveyards," Rhoswen said solemnly. "It grows on the barrows of the dead, and they do not like to pick it, except in great need."

Ivriniel looked at her in surprise. "I did not know you were familiar with Rohan, Rhoswen."

Rhoswen blushed. "I am not – but my eldest brother Carnil went there with a delegation from the Steward when he was stationed in the city on military duty, and he brought home the most wonderful stories that winter. Simbelmynë was in one of them."

"I suppose your brothers brought home many stories for you," Lottie said, taking one of the flowers in her fingers and crushing it, ever so slightly, to release its scent. Rhoswen nodded, picking up one of the withered rose hips and rubbing it across her fingers meditatively.

"That was how I learned about the world," she said, smiling. "Carnil told me of Rohan, and Lucan of Dol Amroth, Erufailon of the Lebannin and the lands near the mountains, and they all taught me about Minas Tirith. That was how I first met Boromir,"she confided.

"Really?" Lothiriel, as always, wanted to know more. Any small piece of information that let her know more about what Rhoswen had been like as a child.

"You must have been very young then, to hear such stories," Ivriniel said. "Your brothers, as I recall, are all a good deal older than you."

"Twelve or so. At least, that's when I remember hearing the first one – from Erufailon. There had been a skirmish, somewhere in Ithilien, and 'Failon had been there with Boromir's company. He spoke of the Captain-Heir as if he were Beren One-Hand or Isildur, some hero of old come again. And so, one small girl fell in love with the idea of her prince in far-away Minas Tirith."

"Was he what you had hoped for, when you finally met him?" Lottie asked, remembering her own share of stories about her larger-than-life cousin.

Rhoswen considered this. "I could not say. I had quite forgotten about all that by the time I was called to Minas Tirith. I thought I would marry a lord of the provinces – the Captain- Heir of Gondor was beyond my grasp." She chuckled as she remembered something else. "And there was always the reminder of how much older he was."

Ivriniel glanced at the two young women, lost in thought, and suddenly laughed. "Look at you two, comparing stories as though you were already in your dotage and your best years were far behind you! Go and do something else for a while – this herblore will make you old before your time. It is not so cold yet – take a ride in the fields! Feel life around you!"

She shooed them out of the room with the distinct feeling of a mother herding off her daughters when there was a present to be assembled or important marriage business to be discussed, and Rhoswen and Lothiriel left as they were bid, retrieving woolen capes and fur-edged hoods from their cedar chests as protection against the chilling sea breeze.

It was warm enough out in the stable block, the straw-strewn floors and many moving beasts keeping in some of the heat from a few small braziers contained. Lothiriel went to see her horse saddled while Rhoswen waited in the passageway where visiting mounts were kept.

"Does my lady need help?" A voice that sounded familiar asked. Rhoswen turned, surprised when she saw Iorlas, Bergil's uncle, standing in the doorway of the stable block. He was wearing a tunic of the variety the men of the city usually used while doing some heavy manual labor, and his hair was tied back as well, trying to keep what little of it would stay in the tail out of his sweat-framed face. He walked over to steady the horse, and Rhoswen could see a moderate limp in his step, a reminder of his broken leg. The wound had healed, but it was obviously causing him some pain still. Perhaps it was this cold weather – it did not get so frigid in the White City.

"Why are you here?" Rhoswen asked, forgetting her manners in her sheer confusion. Iorlas smiled apologetically, brushing his hands together as if to clean them of some evil deed. One of the city's grooms came over to help her mount her horse, and she continued listening as the other man silently went about his work.

"I asked the Lord Erun if I might attend you in Dol Amroth, Lady, and he consented. They would not let me return to duty in the city until my limp became less pronounced – I told your brother I could ride a horse and bear a sword and would he take me as your guard, so that I might do better service to the City through serving you than writing out reports."

"Why would you wish to do that?" Rhoswen asked, now safely atop her horse and looking down at Iorlas from the saddle. The position strengthened her nerve a little; she was suddenly very cold despite the nearness of the brazier.

"You have given me a debt I can never fully repay, my lady." The Gondorian's eyes were bright with gratitude and – something else.

Rhoswen smiled as benevolently and benignly as she could. "I was not the only healer who attended to your leg, Iorlas."

"But the other healers did not care for my nephew and lend me books that I might read to him, and enlighten myself with, Lady," Iorlas said respectfully. There was something in his voice, something in the way he looked at her, that frightened her a little. His respect was almost too sincere, like a masque – or worse yet, a lie. She nodded tersely and moved the horse to step around him, passing by out of the stable to join Lothiriel in the yard.

"Who was that you were talking to?" Lothiriel asked, peering around Rhoswen into the doors of the stable block. Rhoswen looked behind her to see Iorlas slipping back inside.

"One of my guardsmen. He wished to accompany us, should we need him. I told him we would go alone," Rhoswen lied with a smile. "My brother Erun seems to have told them I am made of glass." Her voice tried to be light, airy, dismissive even; she did not know if it succeeded.

"Well, we know that is not true!" Lothiriel said. "You are a woman of flesh and blood, just as any other is. Where shall we ride today, my earthy sister?" she asked, steering her mount out of the stableyard and into the road beyond, leading out into the outlands of the Swan Citadel.

_Somewhere I cannot hear my heart pounding in fear,_ Rhoswen said to herself. "The beach," she said aloud. "I have a mind to hear waves again."

The wind whipped in bitterly from the vast expanse of the stone-dark sea, the waves slapping angrily on the stones of the beach in sharp succession, furious under the strangely calm sky, one great immense grayness to mirror the water beneath it. Yet all this furor was strangely calming to Rhoswen. One wave would leave, and another would take its place; it was the order of things, predictable in a fashion. Soon it would be End-Year, and there would be parties and masques to welcome back the sun and the new year, and after that spring would slowly peek up its sleepy, frost-tipped green head, shy at first and then growing into the brash color of full bloom.

The horses stood solemnly at their hitching post, back from the shore a ways, while Rhoswen and Lothiriel sat down in the sand, careful of the tide. For a great while, no one said anything. Gulls reeled overhead, chirping and shouting their incessant cries, punctuated every so often by a tremendous rush of surf and the ensuing retreat, the sound of the wave washing back out. Rhoswen wished she were a poet; to share this scene, this fog-like calm when the world was gray like this, would have been marvelous. She could put voice to other people's words, it seemed, but not her own.

"Rhoswen, are you looking forward to marriage?" Lottie's voice came unexpectedly after the last burst of wave, startling amidst the sound.

"Yes, I suppose I am. A little," Rhoswen amended, suddenly unsure herself. It had never been a question of whether she was ready or not; marriage was just something that was going to happen, and that was all there was to it.

Why?" Lothiriel asked.

"I don't know…I shall have my own house, my own servants…my own children, soon enough." The thought of a little one just like Barhador, her brother Carnil's son, brought a smile to her lips.

"You are looking forward to that?"

"Aren't you?" Rhoswen asked, shocked that Lottie would suggest otherwise. Another unspoken truth. Lothiriel shook her head and scowled.

"It all sounds so…dirty. The getting of children and the having of them. And women die in childbirth all the time! Why should I go through all that trouble to please a man by giving him a son? Can't he be pleased by me?"

"I don't want to have children just for Boromir's sake," Rhoswen defended. "Well, I-I do, but that's not all of it. He can have them, certainly, but…" she trailed off, trying to find her thoughts. "I feel empty every time I see a mother with her baby. I feel like I'm missing something, like I'm cold inside. And to feel that warmth, of a child next to me, seems the only thing that will warm me." She brought her hands up and wrapped them around her shoulders as if she were cradling something between them. "Why do you ask, all of a sudden?" She wondered aloud, looking at Lottie for a further explanation.

It had suddenly struck her how odd it was that Lottie – Lottie, who never turned up her nose at the chance to tell a dirty joke or insinuate something or eek one more bit of information about marital congresses out of some newly married acquaintance of hers – should so abruptly find the whole business…what was the word she had just used? Dirty. Something was surely rotten here.

"You know that lady Riressil has been confined to her bed," Lothiriel began, collecting her own thoughts as she played with the hem of her gown. "Mama would have someone visit her, and I went, a few days ago, and she was so miserable, sitting there, waiting for this…this thing to leave her and be done with the whole business. And I thought, 'Why on earth would I ever want this for myself?'"

Rhoswen knew of Riressil, and a little of her condition; the lady had eaten some sweetmeats with some herb or another in them and accidentally brought on false labor; the healers had confined her to bed with a strict diet and the lady, who was inclined to enjoy her food, was not taking it well. "Riressil is a fool who did not follow her midwife's instructions, Lottie, and any pain she has is her own doing for the moment," she found herself saying harshly. Lottie looked at her normally soft-spoken friend in shock. Rhoswen stopped herself and paused for a moment. "What I mean to say, Lottie, is that you are no fool, and you will have no such problems in pregnancy. And to see the look of joy on your husband's face when you show him the beautiful baby you will doubtless produce for him, that will be all the payment you need."

"What if it's a daughter?" Lottie asked miserably, "and he wants sons?"

"Your father is no fool either," Rhoswen said strongly. "He would not give you away to a man like that. Besides," She said, leaning in close to Lothiriel and feeling her cheeks color against the cold, "there will be joy enough in the begetting of the thing, too, won't there? Because your father won't marry you off to any old bezoar, he loves you too much for that. He'll be young, and strong, and handsome, and he'll love you terribly." _Who knows? Perhaps the stars will align and it will be my brother whom you love already,_ she said inwardly, watching Lottie's face and knowing her friend was thinking of the same man.

Lottie smiled in surprise, giggling a little as Rhoswen's elbow hit a ticklish spot in her side. "Will you listen to yourself?"

"Oh, I am listening," Rhoswen said, "If it will make you laugh as you have made me laugh, so much the better. You needn't worry about it all so soon, Lottie, you are not getting married this instant, anyway."

"Am I not allowed to worry about things as you do, Rhoswen?" Lottie joked.

"No, never," Rhoswen shot back. "I shall be the worry-wort, and you shall always be there to talk me off my cliffs of woe." She paused for a moment. "What have I been worrying about recently? I thought I was much better of late."

"That guardsman in the stables, Rhos," Lottie said solemnly, her flash of mirth gone. "What did he say that put you so ill at ease?"

Rhoswen's strong veneer fell away, a shield discarded by a fleeing footsoldier. "Oh," she said weakly. "You saw that."

"Yes, I did, and I want to know what he said that put you so on edge," Lottie said strongly. "Did he talk to you of babies and marriage, too? Because if that is the case, I know several of your brothers and mine would like a word with him."

"It was nothing like that," Rhoswen said, trying to brush the issue away and finding it was stuck to her chest like a cocklebur. "I was his nurse, in Minas Tirith. He is the uncle of a…a friend of mine, a little boy of eight named Bergil. I did not think I paid him any special mind, but…he seems to have formed an attachment."

"And that troubles you?" Lottie asked, more for the benefit of letting Rhoswen acknowledge it than the actual answer; she knew already that it troubled Rhoswen, who never liked to be the center of attention for fear she'd slip and fall, to the amusement and pleasure of all.

"You know my mind better than any other, friend," Rhoswen said simply, acknowledging Lottie's suspicions and turning her eyes back to the beach.

"What will you do about it?" Lottie wondered aloud. Rhoswen shrugged, shivering at the same time.

"I do not know," she said truthfully. "Pray I do not see him, at least." _There seems little else I can do_.

If Lottie had another suggestion, she did not voice it, only nodding in what seemed half-felt agreement.

"You will say nothing about this to Mother?" Lottie asked suddenly, as if afraid Rhoswen would break her trust.

"Only if you will say nothing to Erun," Rhoswen acknowledged. "I do not want him to worry overmuch over me."

_He would do that without my prompting, my friend_, Lottie thought to herself as they picked each other up of the beach, patting skirts and pulling strands of hair back behind their ears despite the wind. The ride back to the citadel was a quiet one, hardly interrupted by shout or call. Everyone was indoors today trying to ignore the wind and the cold. But there was sound enough coming from the solar when the two women returned from hanging up their cloaks – a veritable marketplace jumble of sound, laughing women and bargaining men. Lottie opened the door on an almost pleasantly chaotic scene. The trunks of a merchant lay scattered about the room, all in various states of yielding up their contents. The air was filled with strange and exotic smells, the new perfumes from the shops of the Swan city, and the packing cases of the weavers and dyers lay open to cloth of every make and color, a grand and private bazaar for the delectation and delight of the ladies of the Prince's household.

"Finally, my prodigal daughter returns," Heledirwen said, emerging from the colorful tableaux followed almost cautiously by several merchants and their daughters, here to help display their finest wares. "And wind-blown, too," she said, stroking Lottie's reddened cheek with a fond and only slightly disappointed air about her. "You should not have been out riding in this weather."

"I needed fresh air," Lottie said, her standard answer for most of her wrong-doings. "What's to be done with all this, then? I thought we were not to have new gowns until after the End-Year. Papa said –"

"But my girls must have costumes for the Masque," the Lady Heledirwen said, taking Rhoswen by the hand and leading her through the maze of boxes and cases to what seemed the nexus of it all. Several merchants, palms a little sweaty, stood by waiting to show their wares to a regally throned Ivriniel, holding court amidst the swathes and silks and receiving each box presented for her consideration like a queen receiving guests at a banquet.

"No, the jewel should be less green – a pale spring green, to match the leaves of the – Lottie and Rhoswen! You have returned!" Aunt Rin turned her attention from the jeweler's box in front of her as the man went to inquire through his cases for what she desired and beckoned over her nieces. "Come sit by me and see what I have bought you today."

"We didn't need –" Rhoswen began, wondering what outrageously expensive gift Ivriniel was about to bestow. But Ivriniel would have none of it – she laid her fingers over Rhoswen's mouth and sat the young woman down next to her, beckoning forth her maid to bring forward plans of some kind – artist's renderings of what seemed to be masks.

"Since I have never had twins to dress before, you must humor me; it has always been a fancy of mine to see such a costume at the End-Year Masque, and now that I have two of you who look enough alike I must see it done. You shall be Telperion and Laurelin. You must excuse the cartoons," she gestured to the plans, "but he was in such a haste, and that was all he had time for. There will be gilding, of course, that is not shown, and I thought ribbons of some kind, trailing a little…"

She went on, and Rhoswen and Lottie pulled the plans closer, musing on the images before them. Rhoswen couldn't help but run her fingers over the intricate design, inked on in painstaking detail. If these were poor copies, she could not even begin to think of what the real ones would look like. Lottie had gone on and on several days previously about the End-Year masque, the grand party that brought out the old year and rang in the new, how everyone wore masks, many of them generations old, and flirted tremendously, and generally raised a little raucousness. It was one of many things by which Dol Amroth distinguished itself from the Tower of Guard – not content with simply a grand feast and a giving of gifts, the End Year was a revel of nearly a week in length, filled with parties and intrigues and a good deal more fun.

But she had not thought that the masks of which her friend had spoken were quite so…beautiful. On paper, the leaves did not quite flare like she thought the leatherworker would mold them, but even so, the design seemed to levitate off the page. There were two, one so deep a blue-green it was almost shot through with black, half a face covered in the leaves of a night-time forest, gently illuminated by the silver crescent beaten into the brow. The other was an early morning sun, peeked coyly from around the tips of leaves the color of new shoots and ripening wheat. The two trees of Valinor, the trees that had given forth the sapling that had become the White Tree.

"They're breath-taking," Lottie said, quite as shocked as Rhoswen was. Hadn't she been telling Rhoswen that getting a new mask was almost as important as being allowed to wear one of the famous heirlooms? "Aunt Rin, you shouldn't…"

"I am allowed to overspend once in a while, Lottie," Ivriniel said placidly, patting her neice's hand. "I want Rhoswen's first End-Year in Dol Amroth to be a good one, and what better way to celebrate her entry into our family than with new masks? Your daughters will wear them one day and you can grandly remember your youth. 'This was the mask I wore the year that I was married,' you will say, and your daughter will screw up her nose at you and beg you not to say any more about when you and your husband were young and in love."

"I remember that face all too well on this one," Heledirwen said, nodding at Lottie. "And yet you love that lily mask almost as much as I do."

"Ah!" Ivriniel cried as the jewel merchant opened another velvet lined box. "That is the one! That green!"

"My lady has excellent taste," said the jeweler graciously. Rhoswen doubted he would have said otherwise regardless of what her choice was so long as his commission was paid in good time. Picking up the piece and letting it catch the light from the window, the craftsman held it out to Ivriniel and let the Lady of Belfalas judge it for herself on a closer level. A square cut stone, set in a delicate filigree pendant so as to let the light pass through it, hung on a heavy-looking golden chain, glittering greenly.

"Yes, this will do very well," Ivriniel said, holding it up to Rhoswen's face as the younger woman looked on with astonishment – the stone was easily the size of a pigeon's egg and no small weight, either.

"It is too much," Rhoswen stammered as Iviriniel smiled and shook her head.

"It is just enough, my dear. Let other women wear small gems – a princess is outshone by no one. You will say nothing about its price," she said quickly to the merchant as Rhoswen gaped. "My maid will settle the account with you when we are finished. Now, what have you in purple and sapphire for the Princess Lothiriel?"

It went without saying that then merchants left happy that afternoon, their trunks lighter and their purses fuller, fat and happy with their meal of golden castari. The finery was packed away for end year and the room swept clean of wayward thread and beads, the chairs set back to their original positions so Ivirinel's minstrels could join them for the rest of the afternoon.

"Yoneval, we have been you should sing us something…wistful," Ivirinel decided as the troubadour came in, joining them with one of his elaborate bows and setting himself on a short chair where everyone could hear him. The troubadour considered this, tuning his lute and strumming experimentally.

"Wistful," he repeated thoughtfully. "A song about lost youth, about innocence…"

"About the passage of time," Ivriniel clarified. "Today has been a day for long memories."

The minstrel smiled and nodded. "I have just the piece," he said, clearing his throat and strumming the opening chords. The room stilled as Yoneval began singing, opening, of all things, with a question, haunting and, Rhoswen quickly realized, quite true.

"What is a youth? Impetuous fire.  
What is a maid? Ice and desire.  
The world wags on.

A rose will bloom  
It then will fade  
So does a youth.  
So do-o-o-oes the fairest maid," the troubadour trilled, his audience spellbound.

Comes a time when one sweet smile  
Has its season for a while...Then love's in love with me." Yoneval smiled, and strummed the lute again, changing the key and quickening his pace, a light and capering note in his voice.  
"Some they think only to marry, others will tease and tarry,  
Mine is the very best parry. Arien she rules us all.  
Caper the caper, sing me the song,  
Death will come soon to hush us along.  
Sweeter than honey and bitter as gall.  
Love is a pastime and it never will pall.  
Sweeter than honey and bitter as gall  
Arien she rules us all

"A pretty tune, but bleak," Ivriniel pronounced when the last notes died away. "And why have you used Arien as the goddess of love?"

"If one could describe a love like that in the song, Lady, as well you know, it would be the love that consumes, that burns and leaves nothing behind, that cannot be consoled in sorrow. Such was Arien when she became the sun. Such, then, is love. "

"I thought it very fine," Lothiriel declared with a winning smile. "Yoneval is the best poet in the whole city of Dol Amroth when he is here. Is that not so, Yoneval?"

"If it is, lady, it is only because I have prettier women to write about than other men,' the troubadour said gallantly. "The ladies of the Swan Citadel have no peer throughout Gondor."

"I would not say that – to do so would be to insult my cousin!" Lothiriel corrected, making Rhoswen blush. "In her own city and, indeed, here in Dol Amroth also, she is reckoned among the fairest of the fair. What is it they call you in the City, Rhos? You have a nickname – Erun has told me of it!"

"The White Rose. It is a play on my name, nothing more," Rhoswen said, trying not to take the focus away from Lothiriel.

Yoneval was smiling now, as though a great mystery had been explained to him. "It pains me, then, that I should talk of the death of roses so carelessly! I pray you pardon me, lady, and allow me to make amends. When I was in the city a few days ago I heard a rather magnificent song. Not one of my own making, alas, but beautifully composed. May I sing it for you, ladies?"

"Indeed, I do not think we can let you leave without singing it, after such an introduction," Aunt Ivriniel said, smiling at Rhoswen and turning back to Yoneval.

The man smiled enigmatically, briefly catching Rhoswen's eye as he began. The look made the lady startle; his eyes, straight on, were radiantly blue, and everything she'd heard the maids saying about his good looks and charm suddenly became clearer to her.

"I know a lady bright and fair  
with star-white roses in her hair  
In all the world she is most pure  
no man could withhold her allure

She is the lady of my lord,  
the man to whom I owe my sword  
To him she shows the deepest love  
a golden treasure from above

I could not part them, for my heart  
knows it was curséd from the start  
to love a maiden fair and fine  
while knowing she could not be mine

So I will sit and sing my song  
in grief in deep as day is long  
And in my heart will still compose  
a verse to praise the true White Rose."

Lothiriel clapped endlessly as Yoneval finished the bitter little ballad, and Rhoswen felt strangely warm. Someone had written a song…for her, it seemed. "Where did you find this song, Yoneval?" Lothiriel was asking the troubadour.

"A place whose name I will not repeat in the lady's ear, it is so uncouth. A common wine-stew, no more. Sometimes a poet must sink to such places," he added sadly, though he really did not seem sad about it except for show. "The song, I thought, was too pretty to be sung there, and so I rescued it from the mouth of the poor soldier singing it (rather well, though, I thought, though he had no lute or rebec to accompany him) and brought it here for your pleasure."

"Was he of Dol Amroth, this soldier?" Rhoswen asked, suddenly finding her voice again. Her skin was cold. Yoneval turned to her, with a mischievous look in his eyes as though he would find out from her the great secret to who had really composed the tune.

"No, Lady, now that I think of it, he was not, and sang with the accent of one from Minas Tirith. A wonderful voice, though, for someone not of Dol Amroth." Yoneval's eyes darted back and forth for a moment, thinking rapidly. "But if my lady wished, I might frequent the place again and offer him lessons in the playing of an instrument or in singing, if that would please you, and tell you all the things a man may learn in the course of a conversation."

"It would not please me," Rhoswen said quickly, rising from her chair gracelessly, her throat suddenly dry. She remembered her courtesy before she took a step towards the door, and said to Yoneval, rather tonelessly, "Thank you for your songs, Master Poet. They were well said." The troubadour bowed and let her retire, leaving Lothiriel to mend the silence and call for another song before going to console her friend.

"Rhoswen, why did you leave so suddenly? It was only a harmless favor Yoneval offered," Lothiriel said reasonably, shutting the door to her room behind her tightly so that they might not be overheard. Rhoswen was in a chair by the fire, her shoulders tense.

"I know what he was offering," Rhoswen accused. "To…to take messages to this soldier, tell him of my approval, arrange meetings and all the while drag my honor through the mud down to that horrible little wineshop!"

"I think you already know who wrote it," Lothiriel said dangerously, locking eyes and staring Rhoswen down. Rhoswen turned quickly, cracking her elbow into the back of her chair. "I think you already know and don't want him to know that you've unmasked him. Because you're afraid."

_How many men have come with me here, and how many of them know of poetry, and how many of them have expressed desire for me? Yes, I know, and yes, I am afraid, and why should I not be?_ "Because I'm afraid of what the rest of the court will think of me, with my betrothed gone until heaven knows when and a little-known soldier composing songs to my beauty?" Rhoswen said miserably, turning back to face the fire, holding her elbow and cursing her haste. "Is that not sufficient grounds for fear?"

"There is no danger in words of love, Rhoswen. I think I know that better than most, living where I do," Lottie said strongly. "Let him write his songs. I think if he wished for more he would have acted differently already."

"To follow me to Dol Amroth, to dog my steps whilst I am here, is that not acting differently?" Rhoswen asked, nearly hysterical at the idea that Lottie was not seeing this the same way.

"Rhoswen!" Lottie said strongly, seizing her friend's shoulders and forcing her to look into her eyes. "He has not followed you here, he is in your service, and the service of your brother. Your brother, who, I might add, is well known for protecting you to the last. If he has spoken with him of the matter of his presence here, and Erun has allowed him, then that should be all the surety you need. Your brother is a perceptive man and not easily fooled. Has this man dogged your steps? Is he waiting behind every corner? Has he sent you notes, flowers, tokens of his esteem? Tried to make his presence known to you? No! He has waited, because it is obvious he respects you far too much to ask for your attention. Because he respects Boromir as well," she added. "He has said as much in his song."

Rhoswen took a deep breath. "What would you have me do?" She asked, almost helplessly. She knew what Lottie was saying was true, but she didn't want to believe it.

"Call him to an audience. Bring the matter to his attention and see what he does with the information." Lothiriel paused. "Do you know why my uncle Hithwon liked his musicians so?"

"Why?" Rhoswen asked dryly.

"Because he was assured of their loyalty and their good opinion, and those two things meant that he could divert and direct the minds of his people, to an extent. Boromir has been gone for nearly four months now; there is talk – I will not say where from – that he may not return. Let the troubadours sing of such things as his return and your marriage. It will allay the fears of the people a little, remind them what they shall look forward to when he comes back. You shall be married, produce an heir, and life will move on as before. It will be that simple. It must be."

Rhoswen was silent, as if trying to find something to say to this proposition and failing. Lottie knew her friend too well to let this pass – if she dealt one more blow, the thing was as good as done. "You told me once you would rather be more like Aunt Ivriniel than any other woman in the world," she said strongly, her voice almost threateningly soft. "Here is your chance to begin the game. You are not the same girl who left Minas Tirith in melancholy. Let the world begin seeing the woman you have become, a woman who knows how the world works and is intent on seeing it that way, a woman who has her husband's best interests at heart, even if he is not here to see it." Lothiriel stepped back for a moment, wanting to survey her work from a distance. Her friend's face was no longer in turmoil, but rather quiet thought. Lothiriel smiled in spite of herself. She knew that look. It meant Rhoswen was seriously considering her proposition.

Finally the other woman spoke. "What should I say?" she asked quietly.

The Amrothian princess smiled with subdued triumph. Here, finally, was the unquiet woman Rhoswen had spoken of as her ideal. "Begin," she advised, "by thanking him for his visit…"

* * *

The scrollwork on the arm of the chair stood out in sharp relief against Rhoswen's wandering thumb, exploring the nooks and crannies of the carved surface while her hands held on for dear life. It was a heavy, ornate chair that usually stood in the corner of the room she shared with Lottie, too imperious for daily use. But imperious, it seemed, was good for audiences with wayward servants.

Rhoswen had thought to stand for the meeting – Lottie insisted she sit; the bigger the chair, the better. "It should be as though they have interrupted you at something – that it is not their time, but yours, that is being inconvenienced. And what if you should feel faint? No, Rhoswen, the chair. Why do you think Uncle Denethor receives in the King's Hall? Because his chair of state is there, and that shows his power, his place."

_I wonder if Denethor's chair of state has a cushion_, Rhoswen thought to herself. _This one is most uncomfortable without it._

Near the window, Lothiriel paced, muttering to herself and wondering if she was forgetting something as they waited for Iorlas to appear. Finally there was a knock on the door, and Maireth went to answer it while Lottie fluttered behind a curtain, intent on watching from the shadows. Rhoswen picked up her book and flipped open to the first page, her hand shaking as she did so.

_I am no reed that bends in the wind_, she told herself, bracing her hands against the tops of her legs to stop them from shaking. _I am the rock the waves break upon. I know the strength of the wind and I yet endure._

"Master Iorlas, of my lady's Guard," Maireth announced. Rhoswen looked up from her book with the most disinterested look she could manage, which probably erred on the side of mournful rather than disinterest itself. Iorlas stepped forward into the room, wearing his best livery and with his hair combed and worn loose in the traditional soldier's style.

"My lady called for me," he said, looking at Rhoswen with no little amount of trepidation on his own part.

"Are you enjoying it here in the White City, Iorlas?" Rhoswen asked suddenly. _That was not it; I was supposed to thank him for his visit, but make it sound as though no time would have been good enough for me. Too late!_

The guardsman did not seem to know what to say. "It is a fine place, Lady, and full of many wonderful things I would not have seen in the city. The Lord Imrahil is a fair and just ruler."

"I have been hearing a great deal of late of the wonders of the city," Rhoswen went on, the words coming from some heretofore unknown reservoir, her voice not her own. "The markets, and the docksides, and…the poets! We have several staying here at the Citadel, did you know that?" she did not wait for an answer. "One of them brought me the most interesting poem yesterday." _Curious, I was supposed to say curious!_ "It mentioned me." She closed her book – her hands had stopped shaking – and looked Iorlas straight in the eye. "I am a stranger here in the city. Yet someone writes a song about me – and my Lord Boromir." Was he shaking? Was he honestly shaking? Or was that some trick of her imagination? Was she shaking? "Iorlas, did you write that song?"

The soldier studied his shoes a moment and then returned his gaze to Rhoswen. "Yes," he admitted finally. "If it has offended you, Lady, I will make certain it is sung no more."

Rhoswen closed her eyes for a moment, a great burden lifted off her chest. It was as Lottie had said; he did not seek to threaten her in the way she had thought.

Iorlas gathered she had feared something, for he went on. "I would not dream of dishonoring you, Lady – my love of the Lord Boromir and the Lord Erun your brother is too much."

"Was any of what you said true?" Rhoswen asked, her voice cold and as emotionless as she could make it. Still, to her ears it sounded high and girlish, hopeful, even. _No, no hope here! I do not hope for anything from him!_

Iorlas paused for a moment and considered his words with care. "It is the fashion in Dol Amroth to love women too far beyond your station to even hope for their acknowledgement, Lady. To compose such a poem and bring their beauty to the attention of others is the only reward one hopes for. That is the nature of… my love, Lady – as a peasant loves his queen for making his king happy."

Rhoswen laughed drily. "I am no queen."

"You are the nearest thing we have had to a queen in many years, Lady," Iorlas added quietly.

_How I wish now that were not true. If only Boromir had been a lesser man; then I would have been content._ _But I must sail with the tide I am given, and all the ill winds that come with it. _"It is not in my power to command you to be silent, Iorlas. You are a free man and may sing about what you wish. You are dismissed," she said, and the guardsman gave his salute, turning to leave. "Iorlas?" Rhoswen said, making the man pause at the door. She nearly forgot why she had called him back, so amazed was she with her own boldness. "Should you like lessons in how to play the lute? There is a troubadour who wants nothing better than to teach you," she explained, a little reticently. The soldier's face brightened, and he nodded once. "I will tell him your name, then." _Though I ought not to,_ something in her mind said dourly.

Iorlas nodded again and then he left, Maireth shutting the door behind him and slumping behind it a little. In her chair, Rhoswen sighed and sagged, worn out from sitting with such an iron-straight back for so long. Lottie emerged from the curtain in a cloud of dust, clapping.

"That was magnificent, Rhoswen! I liked your way better, going straight to the point like that – it frightened him! And to see you – you looked every inch a queen! That is how the future Stewardess must act in court!"

"My own court, disciplining musicians," Rhoswen joked weakly. "Sounds like quite an endeavor."

"But you will have courts, you know," Lottie reminded Rhoswen, half-rescuing her from the deep carved chair and hefting it, together, back to its place in the corner of the room. "Boromir shall see to the stuff of wartime, and taxes, and land disputes, and you will have almost everything else."

"I always assumed that would be private business I would see to, not public reprimands."

Lottie shook her head, setting the room back to rights. "Behind every great man there is a great woman, giving him counsel," she quoted. "One of Aunt Rin's sayings. She, of course, has handled her own affairs of state for years since the death of Uncle Hithwon, but she is the exception, rather than the rule. That was why she started the Courts of Love."

Rhoswen, standing by the fire flexing her arms and trying to move some blood back into them, laughed. "The what?"

"The courts of Love!" Lottie repeated, taking Rhoswen's hands and spinning her about the room. "Every year, at the End Year, Aunt Rin gathers together all her poets and her ladies and they hold debates and arguments concerning matters of the heart, and business between men and women. It is very serious, and a good way for a woman to learn both the skill of arguing and how to handle affairs of the heart."

"Those are so much more complicated here than they are at home," Rhoswen complained, setting her work-basket back in its proper place. "Either you are in love with someone, or you are not. You tell them, or you don't. Why should there be rules and forms to follow?"

She looked up just as she said that, seeing Lottie across the room with eyes blazing. "For hope," Lottie said distantly, her eyes staring the back of the chair she had clutched for support "While you may be married to a Hithwon, you can still keep the idea of a Lu….a lover in your heart, and there is no idea to make it anything more than admiration and desire. They will be after the masque," Lottie specified. "It is always a treat to see who has offended or honored whom after that party."

Rhoswen nodded, only half-agreeing with Lottie. How strange and complicated her life had become since leaving Minas Tirth – or rather, since leaving Anfalas! _I have so many secrets, _she mused._ And so many of them do not seem to be mine. I heard that she said Lucan to herself just then. But do they help or hurt me?_ _Now I command men and fear the whims of other women. What would my mother think of me, if she could see me now?_ She did not have the answer to that question: her mother was as foreign to her as Mordor was, an unknowable place, beyond all thought. But there was someone nearer whose reaction she also could not place.

_What will Boromir think of me when he returns? Will he still even wish to marry me, after all the places he has been?_

* * *

Well, I'm finally done with the middle school, and I'm nearly half-way done with my student teaching at the high school. Student teaching is hard work, let me tell you. And it's really hard to work on a story when your mind has to be in many other time-periods and work modes at the same time. Merc's brain was just not feeling the medieval vibes.

One of the other reasons it took me so long to get this chapter going is because I couldn't find a good song for Yoneval to sing first. Fortunately for all of you, my roommate, who is also student teaching, is in the middle of a Romeo and Juliet unit right now and left the Zeffirelli version on our kitchen counter where it begged to be watched for weeks. Finally I conceded, and right in the middle of Act one, scene five, I found my song. You should go watch it on YouTube – the guy who sings it has a beautiful voice. The other song, alas, is an original. Blame the poor quality on Iorlas' poetry writing newbie-ness.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this (rather long by my standards) chapter. It might be all you see for a while – upcoming college graduation means lots of job searching and not a lot of time for writing.


	22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

They flee from me that sometime did me seek  
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.  
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,  
That now are wild and do not remember  
That sometime they put themself in danger  
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,  
Busily seeking with a continual change.  
_- Sir Thomas Wyatt_

* * *

In the next week there was a great buzz about town concerning the new apprentice of the troubadour Yoneval, a man who was not so young as apprentices generally are and apparently in the service of the Lady Rhoswen, who was taking quite kindly to the customs of the Swan City and would be taking some of them back with her when she returned to Minas Tirith. It was, as Lottie was nearly constantly reminding Rhoswen, a better kind of talk than is generally practiced.

The End-Year drew ever closer, and preparations did not cease. Great tapestries were hung in the feasting hall, part of a changing diet of images perpetrated throughout the year and the Swan Citadel, carefully timed with the seasons. Now, in winter, the tapestries showed feasts and banquets, replacing the hunts and open-air parties of the summer and fall. Rhoswen had watched the servants hanging the massive, embroidered pictures, the old ones being taken down heavy with the dust of the old year, the new ones, fresh from their chests and wrappings, clean and radiant in the sunlight.

"Ah, there you are!" Aunt Ivriniel called across the hall, coming to join Rhoswen in the center of the feasting hall where she stood, hands at her back, watching the heavy cloth rise and show itself through the folds, becoming an image of a vast table peopled with many historical personages from Gondor's past – Elendil sat at the head, next to his sons, Isildur on his left and Anarion at his right. "It is magnificent, is it not?" she asked, taking a place next to Rhoswen. "And very old – Heledirwen has had it remade, to keep the stitches together."

"We do not have anything quite so grand where I come from," Rhoswen said appreciatively. "Smaller tapestries, of course, but nothing so large – or detailed." Her eyes rested on one of the robes of the women sitting near Elendil's sons – their wives, perhaps. History said little about them, yet here they were, too, in elaborate robes detailed down to the last tie and embroidered flower, their hair standing out in distinct curls and braids against the cloth.

Ivriniel nodded. "The weavers of Dol Amroth were taught by the elves. As is said of many craftsmen here, I suppose. Not that any of the present generation have ever met an elf, they passed away from here long ago. But they still have wondrous fine work. One of the merits of tradition. I gave Finduilas a hanging for her chamber as a wedding gift – I suppose someone in the city still has it now. One of her maids, perhaps – it is the custom to take a dead woman's cloth if she does not have a daughter to leave it to."

Rhoswen nodded as the older woman chatted on, still taking in this expanse of tapestry that was wholly new to her until she remembered that Ivriniel was there waiting for her. She tore her attention away and faced the Lady of Belfalas. "Did you have something to –" her voice died off as she noticed Ivriniel's face, which was decidedly laughing.

"Forgive me," the older woman said. "You just seemed so content there, with your hands just so," she placed her hands behind her back, "As though you were overseeing such a thing in your own household. It was a pleasant picture. Very…" she searched for a word. "Commanding."

Rhoswen blushed and dropped her hands to her sides, flexing her fingers. Ivriniel laughed quietly and took her hand, leading her away from the Hall.

"I came to tell you that we are bound into the city to an artisan's workshop. Your mask for the feast is nearly complete, and we must settle debts. Usually I would send my steward or maid around, but the mask-maker's workshop is a place wondrous to behold, and I should like for you to join us."

Rhoswen nodded, assuming the 'us' meant that Lothiriel had already been found and collared in from whatever was engaging her at the moment. She retrieved her cloak from Maireth, waiting at the door to Lothiriel's room as an advance guard of sorts, and joined Ivriniel and Lottie in the receiving yard, where a traveling coach was waiting.

"Could we not have ridden?" Lottie asked as the coach rattled bone-shakingly out of the yard, skipping and sliding over the slips and bends of the courtyard out into the streets of the city below.

"Your mother was desirous of your continued good health," Ivriniel said matter-of-factly. "It is far too cold for riding now, and the clouds seem to indicate snow later. It is no great distance to the shop."

"Then could we not have the man come up to the citadel?" Lottie asked miserably, looking out one of the coach's two small windows. "This coach always makes me feel as though I am about to be sentenced to death."

"Enough of your dramatics, niece," Ivriniel said firmly. "There is a time and place for everything – the coach has its times, and this is one of them."

Imrahil's daughter remained silent for the rest of the ride, nestled into the corner looking very uncomfortable while Rhoswen watched the city roll by. They were on one of Dol Amroth's main thoroughfares – wide enough for the coach to trundle through and still leave room for the ordinary folk of the city to continue their business. The mask-maker's was on a dim little side street too narrow for the coach to cross, the houses dipping out into the street on slow inclines, forming a kind of roof between them. The three women alighted, ducking out into the street and down the lane where the mask-maker's sign hung, next to a dusty gold-leafed sign attached to the side of the building, a swan's head encircled by a golden ring. "That is the sign that the Prince's family trusts this shop – a royal patent. It means nothing to the common people, but this family has gotten good business from the gentry for that," Ivriniel explained as the artisan's wife, in her best apron and cap, opened the door for them, letting them inside the front room of the workshop.

Entering the shop was like stepping inside one of the Citadel's tapestries, albeit one full of fantastic beasts and demons rather than people. From the high rafters hung examples of the mask-maker's art, each one gaily painted, eye-holes staring dramatically at the people below and revealing small glimpses of the ceiling beyond. There were some Rhoswen recognized, the long, extended faces of horses and the shorter, snub-noses of wolves and foxes. Some masks had only vague shapes, meant to merely complement a dress of far superior complexity. The artisan's wife (who had introduced herself extremely quietly and whose name Rhoswen did not now remember) offered them seats on simple wooden chairs, each one painstakingly bedecked with a cushion. She ducked back into her kitchen to offer them some refreshment while drawing in her husband from his workrooms above the little receiving room, telling him that his customers from the Citadel had arrived.

The mask-maker was obviously a man highly devoted to his work – his steps to heed his wife's voice were long in coming. While they waited, Lottie flitted around the room, holding up a myriad of masks to her face and trying to get her aunt and friend to laugh.

"Should you not like to be a dragon, Aunt Rin?" The princess of Dol Amroth asked, holding up a huge mask probably intended for a man, tendrils of leather curling off the front in a rough approximation of a beard, horns with delicate gilding sprouting from the brow. "Or this saucy fellow," she suggested, proffering the dankly gray and stony, folded face of some kind of demon or troll, whose eye-holes (perhaps Rhoswen only imagined this) suggested some kind of leer. "Oh, Rhoswen!" Lottie exclaimed, her eye caught by something on the other side of the room. "Try this on for me, please!" She held up the delicate outline of a doe's head, curiously painted white.

Rhoswen, who had been spared attention up until now, obliged for Lottie's sake, standing up and tying the mask on with some difficulty. It was strange, to have this leather face in front of her, shielding her and yet leaving her curiously open at the same time. She smiled, and Lottie gasped in delight.

"You are quite a different person now, Rhos! I would hardly recognize you with that smile."

"I think the Lady Rhoswen should reconsider her costume for the End-Year. The White Hart would not be an ill choice for such as she."

All three women turned to the entryway, opened in a curiously quiet manner by Ivriniel's master troubadour, with Iorlas trailing behind him, carrying two canvas bags bulging at the center with what had to be their lutes.

"Yoneval! What brings you here?" Lottie asked, temporarily distracted from the mask-works.

"We were passing in the street outside from one of our usual practice places and heard your voice, Lady Lothiriel," Yoneval offered gracefully. "We could not think of passing by."

"Who is that with you?" Ivriniel asked from her chair, making it seem a throne while she sat in it. Yoneval stepped aside, as though just remembering his companion. "I do not recognize him."

"This is my new protégé, my lady, a gracious gift from the Lady Rhoswen here. He is in her service, and is learning the delicate art of songcraft from me."

"Iorlas, lady," the guardsman said, bowing low. "Forgive me that I did not introduce myself – I was too overcome by your presence to…to ruin the moment in which you dwelt."

Ivriniel raised an eyebrow, smiling at Yoneval. "You have a clever student there, Master Troubadour. Take care he does not eclipse his master. It was a pretty compliment, and well made, Iorlas. The Lady Rhoswen has done a disservice to herself keeping you from me."

Iorlas glanced at Rhoswen, still wearing the deer mask, and murmured, with another bow, some vague apology about his training and suitable entertainments at court. Ivriniel heard him and smiled at his courtesy, turning her attention back to Yoneval. "Do you not approve of my original costume for my nieces, Yoneval? I would have thought that you, of all my minstrels, would have appreciated the classical reference to the Two Trees of Valinor, a far older story than that of the White Hart."

"The Two Trees are noble beyond reproach, my lady, but cold and distant. The hunt, meanwhile, is the ultimate story of love; men devote their whole lives to its pursuit. And the White Hart is the catch of catches. None exists on this earth but for he that spends his whole life searching. Now, it seems, for he that wished to hunt, I could show them such a hind!" Yoneval joked, looking at Rhoswen with his curiously twinkling eyes. Rhoswen blushed, but behind the mask she felt bold.

"Be careful, sir – this is a prince's deer, and death to others who hunt it!" she said with a willful note. Yoneval laughed, bowing in his special way to show that he conceded to her. Iorlas was watching the exchange with a curious glance, lost in thought of some kind. Lottie laughed and broke the scene.

"Meaning you had better be careful what you let Iorlas here sing about, friend Yoneval," she jested, untying the mask from Rhoswen's head and setting it back where she had found it. "My cousin is a good shot with poachers as well as with his deer."

Master and apprentice both acknowledged the joke, bowing and making their goodbyes as the artisan finally descended and his wife, hanging back in the corridor with the refreshments, joined them in the front room. The masks he carried were in two plain wooden cases, each latched shut to preserve their contents. Rhoswen remembered Ivriniel's original plans had called for inlaid jewels and a good deal of gold and silver leaf, things that would not be littered about a shop even so prosperous as this one. With great pomp the craftsman drew out his masterpieces, and even Lottie was left speechless for a moment yet again.

"Oh, they are perfect," she said, holding up Telperion to the light of the window and letting the silver leaf edging the tips of the dark, nearly purple night-lit leaves of the mask shimmer subtly. "Which shall be which?" she asked Ivriniel. "I fancy Rhoswen would look better as the Moon."

"But Telperion was the tree that sired Nimloth, and I am not of the lineage of the White City as you are, Lottie," Rhoswen reminded.

"But you soon will be! No, it must be the moon for you and the sun for Lottie," Ivriniel said. "The sun burns and leads to battle – the moon comforts and quietly beckons. A fair match for you two. Now, Yoneval, you and your student will take these young ladies home while we settle debts." The older woman shooed the four of them out of the shop, Yoneval taking Lothiriel's arm and leading the way through the streets. Rhoswen looked around for Iorlas, but found he had taken a different way.

She asked Yoneval where he might have gone, and the troubadour smiled. "I knew I could not mistake the look in his eyes, Lady – he has gone to write a poem, no doubt, and could not wait until returning to do so. Fear not, White Rose – he will come back to us anon." He offered Rhoswen the use of his other arm and lead them home with his usual carefree grace. But Rhoswen could not help but think of Iorlas' face as she had joked from behind the mask with his master.

There were not enough hours in the days, it seemed, between the arrival of the long- anticipated masks and the celebrations for End-Year. Rhoswen found herself praying to whatever gods would listen to add more time to already candle-wearying days; the tall sconces brought into the family rooms to provide more light into the evening hours were becoming heavy with spent wax as the ladies of the house burned through taper after taper in pursuit of their end-year finery.

But for all the grimness of the household's steward as he sent up yet another bundle of precious and costly waxlights or an additional cord of firewood to the Princess Heledirwen's chamber, inside it was merry enough to charm the coldest souls, or their chilled fingers. The dozen or so ladies who attended the Lady of the City, as well as their daughters and dependent nieces, made for a cozy circle as they all sat and sewed.

Rhoswen and Lottie were in a corner of their own, secretively matching ribbons to the colors of their masks. Still carefully stowed in their protective boxes, no one else could be allowed to see them until the night of the party, or the fun of the masque would be stolen away. It was, however, considered appropriate that the others would see the colors of the dresses they would be wearing, and so this part of the work, finding the ribbons and scarves that would hold the mask on and form a kind of carefree hair dressing, was carried out in the flexible privacy of the solar.

For her own part, Rhoswen was so mentally entrenched in the business of trying to match, by candlelight, the carefully pinned pile of fabric samples, rolls of ribbon and mask colors that she would have not noticed anything short of an earthquake, and so did not hear the poem that several of the other girls were reading and giggling about across the room. Lottie, however, distracted in this as she was in all time-consuming womanly work, had one eye on her ribbon and one ear tuned across the room, eager to hear whatever it was her compatriots were gossiping about.

"Niniel, what are you reading?" Lottie asked, suddenly and loudly, jolting Rhoswen out of her work with the sudden sound in such close proximity. The girl Niniel, one of the daughters of a lady in waiting, gathered up her skirts from her perch on the cushions near the fire and came to a chair closer to where Lottie and Rhoswen were working.

"It is a poem, Lady Lothiriel. A new one – Ivorneth only copied it for me this morning." The girl looked surprised that a princess of the city should remember her name, and her speech was a little too rushed, anxious that she should please the daughter of her mother's mistress and gain a little favor in the doing.

"You will read it to me and Lady Rhoswen," Lottie said crisply, shutting her mask case. "I did not hear it entirely from across the room, but what I did hear I liked."

Niniel nodded, clearly not used to declaiming in front of high born ladies. As she began, her voice was too high and nervous, affecting a poet's lilt, but she could not maintain it, and contented the rest of the poem by reading it in her usual voice alone.

"For he who wish'd to hunt, I know where is an hind,  
But as for me, alas! I may no more.  
The vain travail has worried me so sore,  
I am of them that furthest come behind.  
Yet may I by no means, my worried mind  
Draw from the deer; but as she fleeth afore  
Fainting I follow. I leave off therefore,  
Since in a net I seek to hold the wind.  
He who can hunt, I put him out of doubt,  
As well as I, may spend his time in vain;  
And graven, in mithril, in letters plain  
There is written, her fair neck round about,  
"Tarry me not; A prince's I am,  
And wild for to hold, though I seem tame."

Lottie smiled. "Where did Ivorneth get such a poem, Niniel?"

"One of the Lord Yoneval's apprentices wrote it, lady. She said she heard him practicing it by himself and asked for a copy. And she passed it to me. It is a marvelous good poem, is it not, Lady?"

"Indeed," Lottie agreed with one of her more mysterious smiles, looking at Rhoswen. "Which apprentice did you say wrote it, Niniel?"

Niniel blushed. "I didn't, Lady, but Ivorneth was sure to tell me it was the handsome one who wrote it out for her – the new one, from Minas Tirith, with the pretty eyes and the curly hair." She giggled girlishly and the color in her cheeks rose. "She said he had a lovely smile when she asked for it."

"Ah, yes, we know all about his lovely smile, don't we, Lady Rhoswen?" Lottie said, fixing her cousin with a knowing glance. Rhoswen looked a little blankly at her friend, her mind still trapped with the ribbons at her fingertips. Who are they talking about? Deer, Yoneval's apprentice, poetry –Iorlas! Lottie rolled her eyes at Rhoswen's sudden recognition, amazed it had taken as long as it had for her to pick up on what she meant.

"Truth be told, I had never noticed his smile before," Rhoswen admitted, her voice almost cold_. I never noticed his eyes or his hair either except when others commented on it._ But Niniel had come to her own realization, and it crept over her face with an ashy cast that Rhoswen almost didn't notice were it not for the expression abject fear that came with it.

"Oh, my lady, I did not – I didn't mean what I said about the smile. It was all Ivorneth, truly!" she said, stumbling over her words. "Please, keep the poem, Lady Rhoswen. It's only right you should have it." She left the handwritten copy on the table, placing it down and letting her hands back away from it as openly as she could, as if surrendering a weapon to an opposing commander, her hands announcing no ill intention was meant. Scurrying back to the corner where she had previously been sitting, the younger girl and her friends nearly knocked heads together trying to explain what had happened.

_She mistook my detachment for censure_, Rhoswen realized, watching the group for a moment and cataloguing their scared glances in the direction of the worktable. _She remembered that Iorlas is my servant, and that servants write songs for their mistresses._

Lottie looked on leisurely over the top of her mask box as Rhoswen casually pulled the paper closer to read the poem. _Tarry me not, a prince's I am, and wild for to hold, though I seem tame_. He'd taken her words in the mask shop and twisted them into the form of a verse. But she had only said she belonged to a prince – the other words, about being wild, were purely his imagination. It made her sound… imperious. A untouchable kind of queen. _Is that what I am to him? Am I wild, and only seeming tame?_

"If that does not announce his intentions, I don't know what does," Lothiriel remarked quietly. " 'I leave off therefore, since in a net I seek to hold the wind'…A lady could not ask for a greater compliment. He says you are always ahead of him, however fast or far he may run."

"I have a feeling I've frightened little Niniel over there," Rhoswen said, changing the subject. "She's looking at me as though she expects me to banish her at any moment for giving an eye to my guardsman." Watching the girl, who could not have been more than sixteen or so, Rhoswen suddenly felt older, more experienced in the ways of the world. _I was that girl…once_, she thought to herself. _But I am someone different now._

"Oh, let her think that for a while. It will do her good in the long run," Lottie said with experience heavy in her voice. "There will always be men a lady-in-waiting cannot have, and always thoughts she should not speak aloud. Better she learns of it now rather than later. I'm certain her friends all wished they were the deer in the poem, if they spoke of Iorlas so – and now they know that he only has eyes for you, and you only have eyes for Boromir. And that," she said with an air of finality, "Is as it should be."

_That is exactly as it should be_, Rhoswen agreed, returning to her ribbons and mask matching. "Remind me again how all of this," she gestured at the masks and dress patterns as if to indicate the event they were intended for, "is to work, Lottie. I've quite forgotten," she said, trying to make conversation with the always distractible Lothiriel. "And I am sure your family does something different than they do in the Tower of Guard."

"On the last day of the old year, the lord of Misrule shall come around, just as he does in Minas Tirith, and capture all the ladies of the household to ransom back to their families. Or their lovers, if they have any," Lottie said with a smile. "We will exchange gifts and spend the day together healing old grievances. All debts will be settled, all arguments mended, and that night, there will be the masque, where we welcome in the new year and confuse the old one by not wearing our real faces. There will be singing and dancing and all sorts of revels, and we will probably not be done with the party for a week. Then we will put away the finery and the masks and begin planning the next year."

Rhoswen nodded, carefully folding the dark-blue damasked ribbon she had been handling away and closing the lid of the mask box. That was enough of that for one day. "And how do you ever fall asleep, knowing that in the morning you're going to be awoken by a gang of over-excited boys?"

Lottie laughed, folding away the ribbons they would be wearing in her hair as well. "I try to think of who it is I want to wake me." She smiled for a moment and glanced knowingly at Rhoswen. "But it is no hard task to think of who that will be for you, Mistress Hind with your princely mithril band announcing your owner."

Rhoswen smiled, too. "I am a simple woman, with simple tastes. Waking up to the face of my betrothed would be just fine with me. If such a thing could be done," she added.

* * *

Alas, no betrothed faces greeted the White Rose the next morning. She knew it had been too much to ask, was not even expecting it at all, and yet…she pined for it.

Rhoswen fingered the embroidered ribbon at her throat and smiled wryly to herself over the rim of her wine cup, breathing in the heady vapor rising off the warm liquid as she took in the rest of the room. She'd have to be careful about how much hippocras she drank or she'd soon be as drunk as one of the Men of Misrule now cavorting about. It was far too early in the morning for such business, but that didn't seem to be stopping the young men of Prince Imrahil's household and court (or some of the young women, either.)

"Well, cousin, and how are you liking our festivities this End-Year?" the Lord of Misrule asked from behind his gilded, mocking mask, sliding into a chair beside the White Rose and gesturing over a servant for a fresh cup of the hippocras.

"If you're going to call me cousin, Amrothos, you might as well take the mask off," the Gondorian woman said reasonably, setting her own cup down. "It must be terribly warm."

"Gods' teeth, you'd be right about that," the youngest son of Imrahil said, easing the heirloom mask off his face and running a hand across his sweat- slick forehead. "But it is only for fun, and only for the one day, and all the better for waking up pretty young maidens and frightening them."

Rhoswen chuckled. "If you call invading your sister's chamber aided by Elphir's four and six year old sons 'frightening', 'Rothos, I think you may have another thing coming."

The trickster brother made a face at his almost cousin-by-marriage and pretended to be offended. "Oh, you haven't seen those boys when they've been denied dessert. They're right terrors then. You didn't help anything by laughing and letting them crawl back into bed with you and Lottie."

"They were tired, Rothos! They told me you were no longer their favorite uncle, did you know that?" Rhoswen said, trying not to laugh too hard, lest the barb she'd set actually sting.

" I imagine they'd say all manner of things about the uncle who roused them from slumber to go play games they won't appreciate till they are much, much older. Did you know, Elchir told me while we were coming to wake up you and Lottie that he thought girls were very stupid and he didn't want to have anything to do with them if it meant he couldn't sleep in on the last day of the year?" Rhoswen laughed at Amrothos' sarcastic seriousness. "We're going to have to sort out his priorities if he wants to get anywhere in this world."

Rhoswen chuckled again and took another sip of her hippocras. Last year it had been Bergil and the boys of the city waking her up, all alone in her room in Minas Tirith, a series of events tinged with the childish sense of innocence. This year had been much different; Amrothos, Dol Amroth's current king of Misrule, along with a great number of his friends and her two brothers Erun and Lucan, had taken both her and Lottie as their captives, loudly breaking into their room well before the sun had come up wearing all manner of haunting and grotesque masks and bearing with them (for a veneer of respectability) Elphir's two young sons, Elchir and Hurion. The men raised a ruckus that amused Lottie and annoyed Rhoswen, who, instead of playing along with the ribald jokes made by the masked men, commandeered her nephews back and banished the rabble (with Lottie in tow) from the bedroom and told them to come back in two hours when the two little ones had finished their sleep.

When her two hours were complete and Rhoswen had gained a little more of her good spirits, she and the two boys had descended into the hall, where Elchir promptly turned her over to his uncle Amrothos and went to play with his brother and the other boys in a corner. The whole hall would have their fun until families began waking up to discover the ceremonial ransom notes tacked to their doors.

Rhoswen looked over at Elphir's two sons and shook her head. "He is only six, Rothos. He has a while yet to find his way with the girls. He's playing nicely enough with them now," she pointed out, gesturing to the small knot of children, boys and girls alike, playing peaceably enough until the exchange of presents and hostages could take place.

"I suppose he shall need better role models than me if he needs lessons in how to play nicely with girls," Amrothos quipped lightly, a remark he casually dropped just to see his companion smile. "Or have I played nicely this morning?"

Rhoswen's hand came up to her throat to touch the silver ribbon again. "Nicely enough," she said guardedly, smiling through her cautious voice. Amrothos smiled. Lothiriel had spoken with her brother regarding Rhoswen's qualms around End-Year. With Boromir still gone to the North, being ransomed (or kidnapped) by her betrothed was out of the question, and Rhoswen was in no state of mind to let any other man have the honor either. Amrothos, instead, had thought of something clever – kidnap her himself (with his nephews along for the fun) and give her an early End-Year present: a silver ribbon embroidered with a line from a poem, recently written about Rhoswen. _Tarry me not, a Prince's I am, and wild for to hold, though I seem tame._ "And they need not bother about what prince I mean," Amrothos had said when he tied it on, "For whether Lord of Misrule or Captain-Heir of Gondor, you are a prince's lady."

"Are you hungry?" the younger son of Imrahil asked, waving his arm for another servitor to come over with a heaping plate of hot buns, delicately studded with bits of fruit and nuts. "I feel as though I could eat a horse."

"I have not been awake as long as you have," Rhoswen reminded him. "The hippocras will do for now. Have we much longer to wait until the ransoming starts?"

Amrothos looked back to his sister's best friend with pretend hurt in his eyes. "Is your captivity so boring, lady, that you would so soon be free of it?"

"No," Rhoswen said, lightly pushing his shoulder as if to chide him, "I am only watching Lottie and hoping she does not do something foolhardy."

The Lady Lothiriel was in the thick of the captured young women and capturing men, most of whom had, by now, removed their masks in order to better carouse and celebrate with their prizes. Whereas in Minas Tirith it was customary for brothers to steal their mothers and sisters in order to gain presents from their fathers, in Dol Amroth the custom bent in favor of lovers and sweethearts. It was not unheard of for a determined young man to 'kidnap' the young lady he wished to marry and hold her for the ransom of a declaration of dowry rights from her father or guardian. Lothiriel might be the Prince's only daughter, but that hadn't stopped Lucan, Rhoswen's older brother, from almost outright declaring his intentions towards the lady by helping her brother kidnap her this morning. Not that Lottie was complaining – at present, Rhoswen saw, she was very happily installed on Lucan's lap, enjoying the one day of the year when she could be as free with her love as she wished to be.

"Let her have her fun," Amrothos said, sounding much older than he really was as he watched his sister laugh. "I doubt such things will have a life for her much longer. There has been talk of beginning marriage negotiations when Boromir returns with his news from the North."

"Marriage negotiations? Have any names been put forward?" Rhoswen asked quickly, pouncing on this fascinating bit of news. Lothiriel was as old as she was, passing twenty, and getting to the age when fathers began despairing that they'd never find a match for their female offspring. Yet marriage never seemed to stick to her as a serious possibility.

Amrothos shook his head. "No one for certain. I know my father has thought more than once about appealing to our Rohirric neighbors. The king's son, Theodred, was suggested, but I understand they like to marry within their own royal circles in Rohan. There's a nephew, too, the Third Marshal, but I can't remember his name. Boromir shall have to tell us about them when he returns. He'll have spent some time in the Golden Hall of Meduseld, if I know his course."

Rhoswen nodded, her mind elsewhere. "Do you miss him?" Amrothos asked. His companion turned to look at him. "Of course you do – a silly question. By rights he should be here."

"By rights we should be married," Rhoswen said archly. "But come, Lottie's marriage. You must know more," she said, encouraging her companion to continue talking.

"I've told you all I know, and you shall have to ask Father if you wish to know all else," Amrothos said, rising from his chair and quickly draining his cup. There was a heavy knock on the door, and the Lord of Misrule smiled. "Which you should be able to do soon enough, cousin, now that he is here and the ransoming can start." He tied his mask back on, the subtle grin fixed into the leather no match for the face beneath it, and settled himself into the great chair of state usually occupied by Prince Imrahil.

"Who is it who dares to enter my domains?"He shouted down the length of the hall, its occupants quieting to hear the respose.

"Prince Imrahil of the House of Dol Amroth, and those of his city you have asked ransom of." Imrahil's voice, sure and deep, answered back through the thick wood of the door.

"Let him enter and approach," Amrothos declared with careless ease. Several members of the Misrule court dragged the doors open, clearing a wide space in the middle of the room to let them pass. "Prince Imrahil, what good faith gesture do you offer me in surety over the safety of my court and our proceedings?" the son asked his father mischievously.

"A horse newly brought from Rohan, already broken to the bridle." Imrahil declared, meeting his son's bright gaze with the eye of a tolerant father. It must have been agreed upon before, because Amrothos seemed pleased with his present, and allowed the proceedings to begin. The formula was simple, just as it was in the Tower of Guard. A name was called, the family assembled, and a price proposed. A few men broke the asking pattern, responding to the first question "What price do ask for this woman?" with a question of their own – "What are you willing to give for her?"

"A proposal of marriage, in so many words," Lothiriel explained, having returned to the dais when her father had appeared. Rhoswen nodded. "Many of these have been agreed upon before," the daughter of Imrahil explained, "But this is as good a forum as any for announcing one's intentions."

There were few surprises that morning – several marriage offers, most of which were entirely expected, and several wildly outrageous gifts, which were not. Sometimes the price paid for a captive was not the price asked for, and sometimes the price asked was not the price intended. Rhoswen listened with rapt attention as Lucan sold Lothiriel back to her father for nothing more than a kiss, a price that Imrahil liked not at all but grudgingly allowed his daughter to pay to the tall, newly anonymous man. And finally, it was Rhoswen's turn. Standing next to Amrothos, Rhoswen suddenly felt alone. Boromir was not here to pay her ransom, and it would be like Lucan and Erun, too busy with their own captives and Midwinter fun, to have forgotten about her.

"Master Misrule, the Lady Rhoswen is my niece, married to my house. What price do you ask for her?"Imrahil asked before Amrothos could even announce who it was he had taken possession of.

Amrothos paused. "She is not of your house yet, Prince – she is still of common stock. I think…" He looked around the room and grinned. "I think I shall put her to the bid. What am I offered," He asked loudly to the entire room, "for the first dance of the evening with the Lady Rhoswen?" There were whispers, Amrothos' announcement loosing forth a large swarm of gossips' tongues. Rhoswen looked at Lothiriel, safely behind her father; Lottie shrugged, just as bemused as her friend now felt. "Come now, gentleman," Amrothos cajoled sweetly, his Lord of Misrule mask making his eyes glitter in a mysterious, ancient way. "This is no country girl with a dozen others like her behind rick, cottage, and tree! This is the White Rose, the betrothed of the lord Boromir my cousin! Now, what am I offered to ransom this paragon of Gondorian womanhood from the evil fate from being made my Queen of Joy? Such a service, I think, he might reward handsomely for on his return. Shall we start at, say, ten gold castari?"

A muted gasp. A castar was worth plenty in itself, ten castari nearly a dowry among the lower classes. "Eleven!" someone shouted, and the crowd turned in on itself, searching for the voice. Rhoswen thought she recognized Lucan's voice, but it was impossible to be sure.

"Eleven!" Amrothos shouted joyfully. " Brave soul! Am I offered more?"

It was a game for the truly adventurous and the deeply pocketed, the price for a single dance (and presumably the lady's favor) steepling sharply. It was impossible to see who was bidding, but Rhoswen guessed her bidders were, in the main, friends of Amrothos who loved the courtly style of winning over ladies with poetry and ridiculous feats. _Well, this is certainly ridiculous._

And just as suddenly as the bidding had started, someone outbid the whole room. "One hundred gold castari!"

Rhoswen stared, mouth agape. Amrothos held up his hand, stilling the room. "That is a princely sum, my friend," he said, shouting into the crowd. "Have you gold enough to pay it, or are your moneylenders truly kind men?"

"Then how is the price on news from the White City reckoned?" the man continued. "I have both in quantity in exchange for the Lady."

The lord of Misrule laughed. "You talk of princely wealth, and then of pauper's ransoms, sir! News we have here already from other tongues than yours."

"It is no pauper's ransom when it comes from the mouth of me," the man said, moving forward in the hall, the crowd parting to admit him. His cloak, in a dark green like that of the Rangers, was shading his face, but as he drew nearer Rhoswen guessed who it might be. "Though I cannot know what Boromir would pay to see her look so happy as she does now," he ventured as the woman's face turned up, realizing who it was she was looking at.

"Faramir!" Rhoswen exclaimed, breaking away from Amrothos and running to knock the hood off this new mystery claimant. A surprised and excited buzz swept through the hall. The younger son of Denethor laughed, embracing his brother's betrothed and taking from his belt a small pouch, holding it up for Amrothos to see.

"Here is part of your gold, cousin – I would pay much more if it were required. You shall have the rest later, at your desiring." He tossed the heavily little bag to Amrothos, who weighed it in his hand and smiled, nodding to his cousin.

"I wish you joy in her, cousin – and the good luck that your brother is not too angry when he finds out you've been at his garden!" The hall rang bright with laughter, and Rhoswen blushed, turning her attention to Faramir as the crowd around them turned their attentions back to the ransoming.

"I am not worth one hundred gold castari, Faramir. You should have saved that," Rhoswen admonished, happy beyond words to see Faramir's face again, not perhaps for its own merits, though she had desired to see him, but because in seeing him, she remembered Boromir's face, a face that was slowly becoming a little hazy around the edges.

"My brother would have paid more," Faramir said simply, "And so would I, if time had not directed me otherwise. I left in haste, and that was all I could procure."

"Haste? Do you bring bad news from Minas Tirith?" Rhoswen dropped her voice, suddenly aware of watching eyes, taking his hand and moving towards the edge of the crowd, somewhat still a-buzz over the arrival of Lord Faramir, the prince's nephew. Safer from prying ears on the edge of the hall, behind the family dais, Faramir shook his head.

"Only the same news I always bring – that my stay will be short. I had to use every device and favor in my power to come up with time enough to spend in Dol Amroth," the captain of the rangers admitted sadly.

"And how long will that be for, praytell?" Lady Heledirwen asked from over Faramir's shoulder. "Nephew," she said, embracing the younger son of Denethor with the kind of affection usually reserved for sons.

"Aunt 'Dirwen," he returned, his smile genuine when the embrace ended. "Only three days. Enough to bring in the New Year. I must be back in Ithilien within the fortnight. Sorrowful I am that I cannot stay longer, but there are strange doings there, and I can spare no more time."

"Surely you did not just arrive in the city," the Princess of Dol Amroth observed, looking over Faramir's clothes, which were not as weatherbeaten as they should have been if he had traveled all the way from the Outer Marches of Gondor.

"I stayed last night in an inn of the city, aunt," Faramir said, holding his hand up at the beginnings of his aunt's surprise and mild indignation. "The look of surprise on everyone's face was well worth the cost and the lumpy mattress."

"We shall make sure tonight your back rests on good swansdown, then," Rhoswen said.

"And feed you in the meanwhile. It will be an age until Amrothos is done – let us go upstairs and begin opening gifts without him," Heledirwen counseled with motherly promptness, herding her niece and nephew up to the family sitting rooms, away from the mad press and rush of the crowd, still a little frenzied over the arrival of Lord Faramir and the exorbitant fee he had paid to ransom the Lady Rhoswen.

There was barely time for Faramir to sit down near the fire (he had let it slip there had been no fire in his room last night, and his aunt would not hear of him sitting anywhere else) before the whole clan descended upon the family sitting room, filling the room with warmth and laughter as they welcomed Faramir back.

"It has been many years since either of our cousins have spent the End Year with us," Lothiriel said when she and Rhoswen finally found a spare moment together, Faramir carried away on the tide of male cousins longing for news of the city. "He seems…faded, since I last saw him."

Rhoswen watched Faramir in his chair near the fire, penned in by Elphir and Erctheon, their father Imrahil hanging back until his sons' questions were answered. He did seem faded somehow, even in the light of the fire, as if some warmth had left his skin, some light had retreated from his eyes or his voice. Yet he was still the same Faramir, if … thinner and yet heavier somehow, with the same smile and jokes and an easy kind of laughter for his cousins' jokes. _Easy laughter? I have never known him to have an easy laugh. Yet here among his family his voice is light, his brow less worn. It does not do him ill_, Rhoswen thought to herself. "I think I know what you mean," she said to Lottie, careful that her voice should not be overloud.

"What are the two prettiest girls in Minas Tirith gossiping about over here?" Erun asked, the levity of the morning and its festivities carrying away some of his usual gravitas.

"Only that you made a bid even I did not see on the lady Niphedel," Lottie said quickly, covering for them both. "How long has your fancy lain there, Lord Erun, and why did you not tell me of it?"

Erun smiled and shook his head. "It was a favor for her brother," he said with passing interest, trying to make light of what would have been serious business otherwise. "She had spoken of me to him, and he thought it would cheer her, if someone were to bid for her. Her betrothed is serving in the Out Companies and could not be home for Midwinter."

Lothiriel nodded knowledgably and smirked as if she knew otherwise, but she kept her silence and went to annoy her own brothers over by the fire. It looked as though Elphir was going to challenge Faramir to a game of some sort when Amrothos burst in, fresh from his court downstairs and leading, as if for some strange court procession, the servants carrying the midday meal. The room's laughter rose tenfold, and everyone sat down to eat, talking comfortably while Elphir's children ran circles around the room asking for everyone to eat quickly so they could open presents. Heledirwen allowed them one gift each to quiet them down a little and finally the two boys were convinced to sit quietly and play while the others ate in peace.

After the plates had been cleared, everyone's glass had been refilled, and Hurion returned to his father's arms for a better seat, Amrothos pulled a rattle out of his doublet and set the whole room into raucous fits again shouting for presents. "Rhoswen first, Rhoswen first! Come on, youngest person goes first opening presents, you know that!"

"'Rothos, I'm not the youngest, Hurion is," Rhoswen said diplomatically, looking at Hurion, who looked very hurt indeed that his favorite uncle had seemingly forgotten him.

Amrothos turned to the toddler and made a big show of looking him over. "Now, the last time I looked, you were three, Hurion!"

"But I am FOUR, Uncle! Four and a half! And Rhoswen is…" The little boy considered this a moment. "OLDER." He said this suspiciously, with an air of having had the final word on that subject.

Amrothos, however, was not to be denied; he chuckled at his nephew's unstudied assessment of Rhoswen's age and ruffled Hurion's hair. "But that means you have been a member of this family for _four years_, Hurion, and Rhoswen has only been for one, and that makes her younger than you," Amrothos explained. "And," he said in a conspiratorial whisper, "I want to see the look on her face when she opens her present."

The boys were not convinced. In the end, after a good deal of debate and much diplomatic cajoling from several interested parties, Hurion and Elchir were given another present a piece and left happily occupied while Rhoswen dutifully took her choice with the sizable pile of gifts with her name on them, each giver clamoring for her to open theirs first. In the end, Ivriniel clamored loudest, claiming her gift could not wait, and Rhoswen slid the ribbon off a long paper tube to unroll a large painting on rough artist's paper.

"Oh, it's beautiful," Rhoswen said, studying the picture of the hunt before her. It was an oddly complex scene, given that it only contained two figures of consequence; a lone hunter knelt before a deer, who was itself kneeling, as if in homage to him. In the distances of the background, more hunters could be seen between the trees, as if watching the scene or continuing the hunt.

"It is a cartoon, a preliminary drawing, for a tapestry," Ivriniel explained as Rhoswen showed the picture to the whole room. "The weaving itself should be done in a year. It is a wedding present besides; Finduilas should have given you tapestries for your house. It should hang in your bedroom," she said by way of explaining the picture. "It is not a public picture - I think you can see why."

"I think I can," Rhoswen said with a smile, taking one last look at the picture. True enough, the hunter had Boromir's features, the Horn of Gondor hanging at his hip, while the deer, reaching for the huntsman's hand, wore a silver collar and seemed to have just come from a thicket of white roses. _Does it bow to him, or flee? Is the knife in his hand to cut the animal loose again or kill it outright? Or is the knife no knife at all,_ the woman wondered, pinching back a smile thinking of what Lottie would say. _The picture does not give a good answer_, Rhoswen mused, rolling up the scroll again. "It shall be a wonderful gift when it is done. Thank you, Aunt Ivriniel," she repeated, the older woman waving away the thanks as if it were merely a trifle and not a precipitously expensive gift.

There were many other presents after that – an inkstand for Imrahil, new hunting dogs and cloak pins and spurs for the young men, a loom for Heledirwen and books for Lothiriel. There had been no gifts planned for Faramir, who seemed to have thought of everyone himself, but some judicious switches by Heledirwen (who had supervised many of the gifts) made sure that even their unheralded guest had something to open.

It was a warm and insular afternoon: the fire blazed cheerfully and the women took turns supervising the roasting chestnuts and resultant small burns while several rounds of chess games came and went. The world seemed in that afternoon a smaller place, far away from the cares of war and statecraft, and for that, Rhoswen was grateful. But her mind could not stay in the warm family rooms of Dol Amroth forever, and there was at least one other person in the room that knew that. He, however, seemed to be taking great pains to stay as far away from her as possible, always moving when she came near to his conversations, quietly avoiding her.

"Faramir," Rhoswen said, catching the sleeve of his doublet and making him half turn to face her. "I would have a word," she said pointedly, drawing him away from Heledirwen and Imrahil after making his excuses. The Prince and Princess drew away, understanding enough to know Rhoswen needed time with their nephew. "You cannot stay away from me forever," she threatened, her request needing no other words.

Faramir smiled sadly. "I suppose I cannot," he admitted. "I have no news for you, Rhoswen; Silence is better than what I have to tell."

"No news at all? Nothing from Rohan, or from the north…"

"We have had word the council is ended, and some decision made, but there is no news on what it is, or how it affects us. If our calculations are correct, Boromir should be home in the new year, weather and roads permitting. Rohan sent no emissary – they looked to us for news of this thing. Our northern brethren do not trust the elves overmuch, it seems," he said with a smile, trying to lighten what little news he had. Rhoswen nodded, trying not to look disappointed, but Faramir would not be fooled. "I am sorry I do not have more, sister; I think it must be a torment not to know."

Rhoswen nodded wordlessly. It was a torment, but what would Faramir know of it, she wondered selfishly. Her anger suddenly made her feel very small and silly. _Fool!_ she chided herself. _You are not the only one who loves Boromir – he __**is**__ his brother, after all, and brothers' blood runs deep. _Rhoswen made herself smile and look at Faramir, waiting for a reply. "What cannot be changed must be endured," she managed with a bit of bluster, sounding more practical than she felt.

"Indeed it must," Faramir acknowledged with the practiced air of the great sages. "And since you have succeeded in making me give up my secret, I suppose I must give you your present now, too. I did not know if you would want it, after such a disappointment. Or perhaps it will make up for what I cannot give." From some pocket of his tunic he produced a small box of the kind rings were often stored within, the design old and well-worn, as if it had been opened and contemplated many, many times during its journey.

Rhoswen took the thin circlet out of its nesting place and held it up to the light – a thin gold band, hammered flat at the sides, with a finely cut green gem at the peak of the ring. The light from the fire sparkled through the stone, and Rhoswen put it on, admiring the look of the sea-colored stone against her hand. "Is it …" She could not bring herself to ask the question. _Is this my wedding ring?_ The words rang hollow in her head.

"It arrived from the jeweler's nearly immediately after I had arrived home; the craftsman must have seen me riding through the streets and thought to get his payment early from my coffers rather than my brother's. I thought you might like to wear it – on your finger, or on a chain, as you will. A betrothed woman should have something to remember her betrothal by."

_Let this ring be a sign of the covenant that has been signed between us, and a reminder of the duties I am bound to give thee._ Rhoswen slid the ring onto her finger, the metal warming slowly to her skin. "Thank you, Faramir – it is the best gift I could have received."

"Ah, now, you do not mean that – if I had brought my brother the ring would have been a pitiful thing. Doubtless the jeweler thought so – he seemed insulted Boromir did not choose a bigger stone, or a bigger price. But my brother knew it would not suit you, to have a gaudy ring. I think he chose well," the younger brother admitted, admiring the ring for himself. "It does the hand that wears it credit. A beryl, I think – the stone of the elves. They are said to improve one's strength of mind and purpose. Though Boromir would not have known that," Faramir added with a smile. "And your mind seldom needs improving."

Rhoswen tightened her hand, feeling the ring rub against her fingers. "My mind always needs improving, Faramir. I will not take it off."

Somewhere in the halls beyond a bell rang, signaling that it was time to begin descending to the hall for the feast, or to begin the change of costume, if such were required. Rhoswen clasped Faramir's hand in both of her own and kissed his cheeks in a gesture of thanks. "I shall see you at the feast?" she asked, the ring burning cheerfully on her finger.

"I shall need to claim my dance from you before the night is over," Faramir reminded her playfully. "Or have you forgotten what I paid so dearly for this morning? And now I shall know which dark-haired daughter of Imrahil to ask – your ring shall give you away."

Rhoswen laughed and headed towards her chamber. Lothiriel was already busy at the heavy silver mirror when Rhoswen arrived to change gowns for the masque. The table, normally kept quite spare of anything save an additional brush or haircombs, was now full of jars and jewelry jostling for their mistress' attention while Lothiriel carefully brushed some lightly iridescing powder on her face, giving her skin the shimmer of pale gold before she tied her mask on and studied the general effect in the mirror.

"You look wonderful," Rhoswen said, looking over Lottie's shoulder into the mirror and smiling at the fey, tree-like woman who stared back at the two of them. "That green suits you - you should wear softer colors like that more often."

"And you shall have to get moving, if you want to get to dinner on time," Lottie admonished. "I cannot go down without you – it spoils the effect. Maireth has already laid out your dress and your mask but waits for me to tie it on. Shall I help lace you?" she asked, leaving her little work table to help Rhoswen out of the robe she'd worn all day and into the darkly shimmering gray dress that matched Lothiriel's own, striped and printed as if like bark and adorned with the ribbons that would watch their masks – yellows, spring greens and gold for Lothiriel, light blues, purples and silver for Rhoswen.

For all that Lottie asked for haste, she did not let herself be hasty as she helped her friend into her costume. When both masks had been tied on and all the ribbons straightened, it had been the better part of an hour. The two women studied themselves imperiously in the mirror for a few moments before laughing. "I couldn't tell us apart if I tried," Lothiriel admitted. "Although if one wished to look, I've tied Amrothos' little jest into your hair ribbons," she said, picking out the embroidered length that had been Rhoswen's collar earlier that day. "It is not so easy to see unless one looks for it."

Rhoswen turned her face one way and then another to let the light catch on the silver leaf and make the tiny diamonds hidden in the leaf-work glitter and gleam. "I feel quite wicked," she said with a smile, making Lothiriel laugh. "I don't know my own face!"

"That is what I like to hear! Now," Lottie said with a grin, her hands on Rhoswen's shoulders, "What do you say we descend and raise a little ruckus?"

It was invigorating, suddenly acquiring a twin and a face against which nothing could be proved. Rhoswen felt herself melting into the nameless crowd with newfound freedom, taking every dance that was offered, and a few kisses as well, their givers just as anonymous as she was. She had come in with no escort – under the laws of Misrule it was no crime to exchange favors so. Under the warming influence of the dance and the spiced wine being served, Rhoswen felt herself relaxing into easy laughter and company.

"Lady, your beauty is a wellspring of amazement for me. If I could, I would do nothing but drink it in all day long," a voice whispered sensuously by her ear. "Or all night, if it were possible."

"Lucan?" Rhoswen asked, forgetting her disguise for a moment in the shock of being addressed so by her own brother.

"Rhoswen?" Lucan asked, just as perturbed as his sister now felt, a blush flaring up in what little she could see of his cheeks. "Forgive me, I thought you were –"

"Never mind who you thought I was," his sister said quickly, cutting him off as they swept into the figure of the dance, " if her father catches you whispering sweet nothings like that in her ears, you'll find yourself out on the doorstep on the way back to Anfalas," Rhoswen threatened. "If he doesn't know about it already," she added darkly. "Between you and Lothiriel's shameless flirting it's a wonder he hasn't already been told."

"Does she truly care for me, Rhos?" her elder brother asked. "You're closer to her than anyone. Does she speak often of me? Or are her pretty words all as much a game to her as they are to some here?"

_She would probably give you what you mistakenly asked of me, given half a chance_, Rhoswen thought sourly. "Often enough," she said guardedly. "But don't let that give you ideas! Please, Lucan – please be sensible." Her mask didn't seem thick enough to hide this fear – this was the night for insensibility, for wild abandon and merriment and risk, if you wished for such things, and until her brother's ill-timed remarks, Rhoswen had wished for all of them, if only to forget the world for a little while. Now the star of mirth had faded a little, and other torches – duty, honor, virtue – beckoned her hither. What would Denethor say, to know that the brother of his son's bride, a man of pale worth compared to some, was wooing his neice_? What would he do to me, to my family? What would Imrahil do? They have all been so kind, and this seems … a betrayal of trust._

Lucan seemed not to think on sensibility – he was not listening to his sister's words, only searching the crowd for the other grey-gowned tree nymph, the one in gold and green ribbons. He broke away without another word and left Rhoswen partnerless, adrift in the dancers.

"Lady Tree, will you do one small fox the honor of sheltering him for a moment? There is a hunter yonder who seems hell-bent on snaring me," a voice that could only be Faramir's said from behind the vulpine face of a red fox, his beard peeking out beneath the snout. Rhoswen turned to see a woman she didn't recognize watching them coquettishly from underneath her green hunter's mask, an article not as finely crafted as Rhoswen's.

"Oh, gladly, Sir Fox," Rhoswen said, her thoughts still lingering with Lucan, wherever he had gone.

"You have that decided cast about your lips that tells me you are thinking about something," Faramir judged, once they had walked far enough into the push that there seemed little threat to the lady following them.

"I'm worried about Lucan," Rhoswen admitted. "He is…" she paused, not knowing how to describe the situation. "He is in love," she decided, sighing. "And he is being foolish."

"We are all fools in love, and tonight is a night for being foolish. You worry too much, Rhoswen," Faramir said, putting an arm around her shoulders and embracing her. "Let it pass – your brother is old enough to make his own mistakes, if he wishes. I thought much the same about Boromir once. But brothers are brothers, and not easily swayed."

There was a boisterous shout from the hall, and Faramir turned, as if he knew the sound. "Come," he said, smiling and taking Rhoswen's hand, "They are going to sing the new year in. You will not want to miss this."

The tone of the dancing had changed, slowly working up throughout the evening's revels until now it was at a fevered pitch, with trilling pipes and a strong drum beat that everyone was clapping along to. The lights in the hall were all being extinguished, casting the company into lush, sensuous darkness, each man and woman now closer to their neighbor, searching for hands to hold to begin the dance. As with most parts of the proceedings, it seemed as though everyone knew the words – one of Ivriniel's troubadours was leading the whole hall in shouted song. The minnesinger would trill a line and the company shout back a nonsense word, with everyone joining in on the chorus.

"When the winter's course is run, ey-ah!  
and we've finally lost the sun, ey-ah!  
when the year is almost done, ey-ah!  
We will always raise our voices to the coming spring.

Rhoswen clapped along for the first few verses a smile spreading to her face in spite of Lucan and Lothiriel and the ring on her finger as she sang along with the whole crowd, "In the spring, in the spring, we will sing, we will sing, in the spring, in the spring."

"On this most blessed of nights, ey-ah!  
when we put the year to rights, ey-ah!  
We will have no fears or fights, ey-ah!  
This will be a joyful thing to welcome in the coming spring.

"In the spring, in the spring, we will sing, we will sing, in the spring, in the spring."

The voices of the hall dwindled to a whisper, nearly reaching the end of the song, and Faramir looked over to see that Rhoswen, caught up in the song and the dance, was smiling widely

When night's candles are all out, ey-ah!  
and we've put the year to rout, ey-ah!  
we will rise and give a shout, ey-ah!  
A-ah shout to wake the earth into the coming spring!

As they sang the chorus the lights were kindled again, and the dance began in earnest, each circle of people spinning and laughing as they sang the final refrain.

"In the springtime of the year  
when the day is fresh and clear  
and the queen of joy is here  
We will raise our voices loudly in the praise of coming spring!"

* * *

The final song in this chapter is to the tune of _A l'entrada del tens clar_, a great Occitan dance tune from the 12th century. The version I like best is by La Mandragore, who have their rendition (and a really great music video) up on YouTube at their account Mandragoriens. Credit also goes to Sir Thomas Wyatt, who supplied the poetic prelude and "For he that wished to hunt" in this chapter. Hrm. Let's see – credit is also due to several great maskmakers (Merimask and Windfalcon) on deviant art for continued inspiration. I hope this chapter is doing for maskmaking what George R.R. Martin did for ridiculously intense battle helmets.

In between graduating from college (Summa cum laude!), getting ready for my summer job, doing my summer job, and finishing my summer job (Has it really been that long since I updated? Eeeysh...) there wasn't a lot of time for writing. I had to be a real person and think about real person things, but now that I have a non-seasonal job (YAY for money!) I decided this chapter (and my faithful readers) have waited long enough. I apologize in advance for any continuity errors. Four months between workings does bad things for continuity.


	23. Chapter 23

Chapter 23

_A brief note before beginning this chapter – some of you may be confused by the sudden inclusion of the character Rinnelaisse. She is Legolas' older sister, and in this story, she elected to go with the Fellowship instead of her brother. I have not given her the same kind of time I did in the previous version of this story for stylistic reasons._

* * *

_I would like to sing someone to sleep,_  
_to sit beside someone and be there._  
_I would like to rock you and sing softly_  
_and go with you to and from sleep._  
_I would like to be the only one in the house_  
_who knew: the night was cold._  
_And would like to listen in and listen out_  
_into you, into the world, into the woods._

-"To Say Before Going to Sleep" Rainer Maria Rilke

* * *

Boromir tried to still his breathing, slowing his chest's rises and falls to a measured, even cadence. But sleep would not come – the darkness refused to stay in front of his eyes. The Captain Heir sighed and sat up, rubbing his eyes as if he could somehow wipe away the fatigue that dwelt there, lurking and waiting.

It was hard to tell how much time he had wasted, trying to catch the dreams that it seemed would not be caught here. After two months of a sentry's sleeping, given in short spurts without depth or peaceful dreams, it seemed he had lost the ability to simply drop off into slumber.

Beyond the little clearing where his bedroll lay, the hobbits slept peacefully, their respite obviously not as troubled as his was. Even Frodo lay quietly, chest rising and falling in untroubled rhythm, the Ring no immediate danger here in this place.

The Ring! To think of it brought a stab to Boromir's heart, though not with as sharp a blade as the one that had troubled him of late. In the Misty Mountains, when he had picked the thing up, held it in his own hands… Oh, heavy the voices had been then, and clamorous as a battle-fray! But now, here, in Lothlorien, with its elf-witches and forest wights, it was only a dull thrumming in his heart, a thin tearing in his chest. And he could feel a part of himself fighting that angry, jealous ache for the Ring, a part of himself he had forgotten existed until now. Something in his mind cried out to see reason and retreat from this evil thing, and for what little it did, it comforted him. _I am not wholly evil yet_, he reminded himself.

Boromir fingered the moonstone at his neck and tried to think of Rhoswen. In his mind her face was washed out and watery, skin gray, hair limp, eyes sad, a drowned, dead maiden with a glassy gaze. Boromir groaned and closed his eyes, trying to clear the image away. That was not his Rhoswen, only another of the Ring's foul nightmares, trying to haunt him.

Gimli stirred at the noise, turning over in his sleep as if he might have heard the man's outcry, and Boromir rose to his feet, sensing he might disturb the others if he stayed here. Perhaps a walk would cure him of his ills. _And I am not the only one wandering this night_, he noted with interest as he walked past the bedroll intended for Rinnelaisse, the company's sole elf. Her outer jerkin and cloak were there, neatly folded as if they had been washed. But he had long ago observed that she did not seem to have a need for sleep, only a few moments of peace to rest her eyes. Perhaps she had business with the elves of Lothlorien to occupy her.

He could not stay – sleep would not come. Boromir rose, picking his way out of the quietly sleeping jumble and around the roots of the great trees, following a path of some kind out of their pavilion of sorts into the wider woods. No one was about that he could see, but that was not surprising – it seemed the manner of the Lorien elves to live entirely in trees, as if they were a flock of particularly grave and elegant birds. Yet there were traces of them on the forest floor – inlaid pathways of stone that wound here and there around the treeroots, carefully tended gardens of the strangest flowers and mosses, kept clear of leaves by some hardworking hand. Boromir wandered farther, drawn in by the further promise of dells and shadows cooler and quieter than these. Perhaps if I walk far enough, I will leave the dreams behind me, a childish part of his mind tried to convince him.

Far off he could hear the babbling of a fountain, and the faintest ripples of a river falling over rocks. The path forked towards the sound, and Boromir followed it, coming at last to a little glade that seemed brighter than the surrounding forest. Looking up, he could see stars winking high in the canopy, shining through a wide crevice in the dense foliage above. _This is not like the other places I have passed_, he thought to himself, studying the flowers around him with cautious eyes.

"It is a late hour indeed to be awake and wandering," a woman's voice observed quietly from across the garden. Boromir looked up, startled and afraid that he was committing some trespass only to find that it was Rinnelaisse herself who was speaking to him. It would have been easy to mistake her for someone else – her hair, always so rigorously bound back for the purposes of their journey, was entirely loose save for a little golden circlet at her brow, and she had given up her traveling clothes for a loose gown like the Lady Galadriel's. In the dim moonlit-glow from the trees, she looked as otherworldly as the Lady had, meeting the fellowship in her rooftop bower. "What draws Boromir away from his bed and his dreams?"

"I find no rest here," Boromir admitted, rising from his seat to greet his traveling companion. "Some…thoughts yet trouble me."

"What troubles you have within Lorien you certainly bring with you from without," Rinnelaisse said gently. She studied him for a moment, and he found he could not meet her gaze, choosing instead to focus, guiltily, on a flower near the path. "Unless… the Lady troubles you," she said, a hinting tone in her voice. "That is not unknown, for those who do not count themselves familiar with her powers."

Boromir sighed, his secret found out. _Yes, that troubles me – and so much else besides_! "I heard her voice," he began, still feeling full of shame, "inside my head. She spoke of my father, and the fall of Gondor. She said, 'Even now, there is hope left.' But I cannot see it. It is long since we had any hope in my homeland."

The elf-maiden nodded, carefully considering this with that look that all elves seemed to share, that…that great mystery that only monumental age could bring. "I think, perhaps, that you do not know what hope looks like," she said after a long pause, smiling a little. "Many things the Lady says do not reveal themselves for a long time. What is a hope, in truth?" she asked suddenly, her voice still somewhat distant. It was some moments before she turned to look at Boromir, who realized, belatedly, that she had not meant the question rhetorically.

He struggled with his thoughts for a moment, casting around his mind for some kind of answer that would not make him sound a fool. "Hope is…a belief in tomorrow, a promise one makes with oneself to carry on, to endure."

Rinnelaisse nodded. "Is love a kind of hope?" She let the question hang in the air as Boromir smiled a little, nodding faintly. "For I know you love something or someone, Boromir, even if you will not tell me her name," she continued, watching the man of Gondor carefully. "I know she loves flowers, and that roses remind you of her, and that she gave you that jewel, which you seem to draw some comfort from when the hour is dire, or the night is cold."

Boromir looked at his companion in disbelief, amazed that she could have noticed all that in the three short months she had known him, and shared the road with him and the other members of the fellowship. Sam talked often enough of the hobbit-maid Rosie, who he had left behind without telling her of his feelings, and Aragorn, when the poetry of a moment prompted him, might let slip something about his love for an unnamable elf-maid, but Boromir had said little, if anything, about Rhoswen in the company of the others. _But all of what she says is true enough – especially that about the moonstone Rhoswen gave you._ He did not say this, but rather asked a question of his own. "How would you know that?"

"It is a piece made for a woman," Rinnelaisse said without hesitation, her boldness almost startling. Sometimes she had that effect, an almost Mannish sense behind her Elvish reserve. "No human silversmith ever made work that fine for a man's neck. And when you hold it close, you have a look about you, as though your right hand seeks to fight with your left." She glanced at him as if to ask 'Do I miss my mark?' and smiled when he nodded, briefly. "May I see it?" she asked, suddenly all softness again. Boromir uncurled his fingers from the smoothness of the stone and unhinged the clasp, taking the chain off with trembling fingers.

The elf held the pendant in her flattened palm, shifting it to send the light racing across the curve of the stone. "In the ancient tales," she said, "the moonstone was brought here by the elves, the cast off dust from the forging of the Silmarils."

"We do not have such a tale in Gondor, my lady," Boromir said, and then, considering, added, "Or if we do, I do not know of it. My brother cares more for such things than I."

Rinnelaisse nodded, handing the piece back and watching as Boromir fumbled with the clasp, designed for slimmer fingers than his. If she thought him silly, she kept quiet and made no move to help, treating the moments that went by as he struggled as the merest of trifles, something for which he was strangely glad. "I am ashamed to say I do not know what my brother would think on such a story," she admitted when she had his full attention again. "It is a long time since I have talked, sincerely, with my family."

"He was with you, in Rivendell," Boromir remembered. A tall man, with blonde hair like yours, and a dark gaze that seemed angry at turns. "He… spoke up for Aragorn."

She smiled ruefully. "He chided you, morelike. My brother is young still – his passions betray him sometimes. Estel – Aragorn - was a frequent visitor to the paths of Mirkwood in his youth, and my brother has a strong friendship with him. As strong a friendship as can be had between an elf and one of the Secondborn."

"You called him by a different name," Boromir said, curious. "Estel." He pronounced it carefully, as though it were a piece of glass that might break and cut him. Foreign words, he'd found, could be like that.

"It means hope," Rinnelaisse said with a mocking smile. "He is all that remains of the royal line of Numenor. He is hope for his people, as you and your lady are hope for yours. A promise to fight on against the darkness that is coming."

Boromir chuckled feebly. "It seems so noble, when you put it like that. It did not begin as a noble thing – only a duty, and that performed with a heavy heart." The Gondorian nodded to himself. "But it has grown, and flowered, too, I think. And perhaps one day it will bear fruit, if we are given enough time to tend the garden." He smiled at the prospect of a fruitful Rhoswen, all round curves and smiles and warm hands, full of child and life and the strangeness of _hope_, and did not notice himself until he saw that Rinnelaisse was smiling with him.

"Time is seldom given," Rinnelaisse observed. "What time you require you must take, and fight for dearly. It is why we have come here, through desolate places and loss – to take back time before it is not in our power to recover any longer. Even the elves have come," she added sadly, "And we have had time enough upon this Middle Earth."

The warmth of the previous moments was gone, and Boromir could see and hear, in the lady's face and voice, the same kind of regal power the Lady of the Wood had used in their brief meeting. Rinnelaisse seemed even more of a puzzle than before, for though they had talked long about him, she had said nothing of herself, save that cryptic comment about her family. A few leaves rustled conspicuously on the path leading out of the garden, and both man and elf looked towards the sound. It was one of the Marchwardens who had led them into Lothlorien, the one that Rinnelaisse and Aragorn had called Haldir. His face to Boromir was unreadable, but he had been quiet enough in the woods until that moment – he wanted his presence known to them. He was not clad for sentry duty now, but rather like an elf lord, long-robed in a tunic that stood out in the evening dimness as Rinnelaisse's gown did, with a kind of glow.

"And now, I fear I must leave you," Rinnelaisse said, rising from the stone where they had been sitting. "The Lord Haldir has come to take some of my time, and what I have promised, I must give. Dwell not in evil days, Boromir; think of your Lady as you wish her to be in the future, not what she has been in the past."

Boromir nodded, watching the elven lady leave with the Marchwarden, taking his hand as they left the garden. He noticed she did not do so with warmth, and the way she had said 'promised' made it sound as though this was her duty, and not of her own choice. When they had first entered into Lorien and were taken in by the Galadhrim, Haldir and his guards had detained them, saying that they could not allow Gimli to pass unless blindfolded. It had only been after Rinnelaisse had taken Haldir aside and pleaded with him, Boromir remembered now, that they had been allowed to enter at all without all going with eyes covered. And it had been pleading. He remembered that very well. What had she promised to the Warden that would sway him so?

Boromir suddenly felt his eyes growing heavy. The question would have to wait until the next day. He wandered back to the campsite, burrowing into his bedroll and trying to think of a future Rhoswen, his mind drifting back to the heavily pregnant version he had imagined earlier. She was in her garden, and she was smiling, and as the leaves drifted around her feet and the wind tickled her hair, Boromir finally found himself going to sleep.

* * *

_I wandered through a house of many rooms._  
_It grew darker and darker,_  
_Until, at last, I could only find my way_  
_By passing my fingers along the wall._  
_Suddenly my hand shot through an open window,_  
_And the thorn of a rose I could not see_  
_Pricked it so sharply_  
_That I cried aloud._

-Amy Lowell, 'Dreams in War Time' (Part I)

* * *

Lottie blinked her eyes a few times and turned over, peeking through the bed curtains and moaning a little when she saw it was still quite dark outside. Something had woken her up, and she meant to find out what it was. A bad dream, perhaps, or a little indigestion; dinner last night had gone on longer than she'd expected, and she had drunk some unwatered Dorwinion (a gift from Aunt Ivriniel) out of Amrothos' cup when her brother wasn't looking. The deep red northern wine was stronger by a hundredfold than their Gondorian vintages, and Lottie was feeling it now. The new year had been here for a week now, and while there were no longer grand feasts every night, there was the expectation that after dinner one would continue talking until the small hours of the morning, and Imrahil's daughter had done just that for several days now.

"Lottie?" Rhoswen's voice asked quietly from the other side of their bed. Lottie turned over again and tried to adjust to the poor pre-dawn light.

"Rhos?" she asked in reply.

"Are you awake?" Rhoswen's voice had a distinct hurt in it, as if she were nursing a particularly bad stomachache herself.

"I am now," Lothiriel said grudgingly, sitting up and sniffling. "Why are you up at this hour?"

"I couldn't sleep."

Lothiriel paused, weighing each word carefully. Rhoswen had experienced trouble sleeping before, but that was usually over nervousness or restlessness. The young woman had been neither of those in the past days. "Have you had a bad dream?" Lottie asked, watching her friend's face. She noticed now that Rhoswen's hair was tied back and her robe was uncrumpled – she'd clearly been sitting up for quite some time.

Rhoswen frowned uncomfortably. "Yes and no," she answered finally.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Her friend paused and sat up a little more, waiting expectantly while Rhoswen collected her thoughts.

"I dreamt…I dreamt I was walking in a golden wood, with trees in it that I'd never seen before. It was still verdant, and the leaves were still on the trees, but it was so silent there, and still. Then I saw a woman - waiting for me, I think – and she gestured as if she wanted me to follow her."

"What did she look like – the woman?" Lothiriel prompted, still trying to wake herself up. Rhoswen thought hard for a moment.

"Fair," she said finally. "Perilously fair, as if she could see all my secrets…as if all her beauty were hiding some great and terrible power, and she could kill me if she wished to. She had long golden hair, and a robe of the purest white, and a collar of stars around her neck. She led me deeper into the woods, to a clearing. There was a bear there, a massive, dun colored beast, with eyes made out of flame. He was chained to the ground, and roared as though he were in great pain. There was a golden collar around his neck, attached to the chain, and it looked as though it were burning him. No matter how hard he twisted, he could not break the collar's hold. The lady…told me to go to him. She said…" Rhoswen paused, trying to remember. "She said 'You are the only hope he has now. You must bring him back.' She wanted me to touch him!"

"Did you?" her bed-mate asked, enthralled. Most of the dreams she heard (or had herself) were not half so fascinating as this.

"I had no choice," Rhoswen said. "I…I stepped closer to the bear and…he noticed me, and some of the fire died from his eyes. But then I took another step, and he drew away, as if he were afraid of me, and roared. I was so frightened he would reach out and cut me down, but he didn't. Finally I was close enough to touch him, so I stroked his fur, calmed him. The lady told me to talk to him, so I…I did. I said… all kinds of nonsense about his mate, and his cubs, and how they must be missing him in the mountains, and the fire died from his eyes and he laid down next to me and…started crying. I kept on petting his fur, and then the collar on his neck burned him again, so I unlocked it, and cast it aside. And then…" Rhoswen paused and steadied herself a little bit. "Then his fur started falling off, and it was Boromir underneath, and he was crying with me and saying how sorry he was."

"What did you do then?" Lottie asked, hanging on Rhoswen's every word. _I have heard strange dreams, but this one takes them all away._

"I stroked him, I kissed him, I told him it would be all right, that he had not hurt me and that I had not come to harm. He seemed to think I had been hurt by him in some way. I let him touch me to show him that he no longer had claws, but human hands. I let him…" Rhoswen paused to give herself some emphasis, "I let him_ touch_ me," she said again, looking at Lottie as though she could not bear to say what she really meant.

Lothiriel was silent, taking all of this in. "And that was…the good part of the dream?" she asked experimentally. Rhoswen nodded, smiling a little sheepishly.

"The very good part of the dream," she admitted. "And now I have been sitting trying to find out what it means!" she said helplessly.

"It means your body wants you to have a baby, Rhos," Lothiriel said with a practical smile, rubbing Rhoswen's shoulders. "You'll think about it now every time Yoneval sings about lovers' meetings and exchanging flowers and get warm there again. As for the rest of the dream…" the Amrothian shrugged. "The bear for Boromir seems obvious, but the golden collar and the white lady are mysteries to me."

"I gave him a necklace before he left, but that was silver, and had a moonstone on it. This was solid gold, like a ring for someone's finger, except it was around his neck – choking him."

"How did you get it off his neck, then?" Lothiriel asked. Rhoswen frowned, trying to remember the vagaries of the dreaming.

"I don't know…I put my hands around it and pulled, and it broke. It was hot to the touch, though, and had marks on it I could not read." Rhoswen looked at her hands, as if expecting to see burns or scars.

"Well, you shall have to tell the whole dream to Aunt Rin later. She will find it vastly entertaining and will probably see something in it I didn't."

Rhoswen nodded, drawing her knees up to her chest and making the fabric of the coverlet buckle into a tent. "I would…rather we didn't tell Aunt Rin anything," she said warily. "She will make it into something it is not." She looked at Lothiriel to confirm that this is what they would do, and, when her bedmate had nodded, asked, hesitantly smiling, "Did you dream about anything?"

Lothiriel had indeed received a rather wonderful dream, but she wasn't about to tell Rhoswen about it; there were some things a lady did not share even with her best friend, especially when they involved a certain best friend's brother. "No, nothing worth remembering," she said vaguely, sitting up and wrapping her arms around her knees.

"Lottie?" Rhoswen asked, staring at the darkened tapestry of the bed hangings.

"What?" Lothiriel asked, turning over to look at Rhoswen.

"Is it ever right to tell a lie?"

Lothiriel looked at Rhoswen with wide eyes. "Whatever prompted that question?" she asked, suddenly feeling the cold of the morning – or of a sudden rush of shame, it was difficult to tell.

"Yoneval and Aunt Rin spend so much time talking of love and the bonds of love between a man and a woman, and I was thinking of the bonds of love between friends, or sisters. Is it ever right to lie to a friend, even when it will spare them some terrible news?"

Lothiriel was silent for a moment. "What do you mean?" she asked slowly.

"How long have you loved my brother?" The question hung in the air like an executioner's noose, terrifying and brief.

Lothiriel sat up and stared at Rhoswen. "How did you know?" she asked, almost beside herself with fear.

This time it was Rhoswen's turn to laughbriefly. "It's not hard to notice, Lottie. The way he looks at you, the way you look at him, the way you try to avoid each other when you dance or pass by in the halls, and yet always seem to be together anyway." She looked at Lottie with a grim smile. "The way you talk about him in your sleep, and don't think to confide in me about it."

Lottie deflated, her shoulders dropping like leaves under too much rain . "Talking in my sleep," she repeated, as if she hadn't heard. Rhoswen nodded.

"How long, Lottie?"

Lothiriel sighed, her secret no longer secure. "How long have I loved him?" She paused, shrugging in hopelessness. "Long enough. I knew I liked the look of him well before you came, but I do not think we ever had reason to speak above a few words before you arrived. After that, he was often here. And we spoke much…and I found I liked him more than I supposed. And he liked me even more, and for far longer than I had ever noticed him. And now we are…here." She shrugged and gestured as if to indicate the room around them. "Dreaming."

"Be careful what you dream, Lottie," Rhoswen said, remembering the conversation she had carried on with Amrothos at the End Year festivities, about Lottie's upcoming engagement and a possible alliance with Rohan. "They do not always come true."

Lothiriel looked at Rhoswen and, on a sudden impulse, hugged her close. "I think you know that as well as I do, Rhos."

* * *

_Hold fast to dreams_  
_For if dreams die_  
_Life is a broken-winged bird_  
_That cannot fly._  
_Hold fast to dreams_  
_For when dreams go_  
_Life is a barren field_  
_Frozen with snow._

-Dreams, Langston Hughes

* * *

If Boromir dreamed at all, it was comforting enough that he did not remember. Waking up amidst the heavy draperies of muted light from the forest eaves was itself a kind of comfort, away from the rocky crags and open skies that had accompanied most of their journey thus far. The trees reminded him of days spent in Ithilien long ago, with Faramir and the Rangers, learning how to survive in the wild. He had not used the skills those men had taught him in many, many years, but it seemed every day, every step on this road to Mordor brought something back to him, how to read a footprint in moss or a small fall of rocks.

"You look as though you are recalling the memory of a happier time," Rinnelaisse said, drawing Boromir's attention away from the leafy roof where he had been resting his eyes and towards the elf-maiden.

"I was," Boromir admitted. "I haven't had occasion to remember that particular memory in many, many years. I hadn't had the time to until just now."

She nodded, understanding. "Will you come and talk of happier days with me?" she gestured to the path leading out of the clearing where they had been sleeping, the path that Boromir had taken last night to the garden. Boromir nodded, pulling his boots on and following her, wrapping his cloak close against the early morning chill. For a while, neither of them spoke.

"Were your dreams some solace to you this night?"

"I can safely say I do not remember them, Lady, and that is solace enough itself." Boromir laughed a little, but stopped as he watched his companion's face, masked with a look of distracted agreement. "Though, Lady, you look as you have need of some solace of your own. How went your meeting?"

Rinnelaisse smiled in the thinnest of crescent moons. "The Lord Haldir offered me many things, but solace was not among his gifts, though he may have meant it so. Be calm, son of Denethor!" she exclaimed with a sudden smile. "I am not your sister or your kinswoman, that you need put on such a dire face for me and my honor. The Marchwarden asked honorably what he has always asked me, and I refused as I have always refused him. We have a long history, he and I, and well these trees remember it."

"You lived here before, lady?"

"When I was no older than your lady in the reckonings of the elves, my parents sent me to the Lady Galadriel to be one of her attendants, and to learn the crafts of our people. My mother is kin to the Lord Celeborn, a cousin from Doriath of old."

"So they practice fosterage among the elves as well?" Boromir asked, interested. Every day since arriving in Rivendell had been a lesson in so many things for him, and the ways of the elves were sometimes chief among them.

"There are many secrets now known in Laurelindorian that the rest of my kindred have forgotten. It was my mother's wish that I should bring some of their art home to Mirkwood. Alas for her that I did not. My heart is not in the shifting of the shuttle or the spinning of the wheel, or the work of the needle. It longs for wilder, far-off things, which, fortunate for me, the Lady understood. She gave me my first bow, and bid me keep company with her wardens rather than her maids."

"And you met Haldir," Boromir finished with a small nod. Rinnelaisse returned the gesture.

"It is the custom among the elves to practice long courtships. Love among our people is…a very careful thing. What might be to you and your lady the work of months, or weeks, passes between two of the Firstborn over the span of decades. When he finally posed the question he had been pondering, I asked for time to consider, which he gave me. But I fear my time is coming to an end."

Her voice, speaking of an end not quite so dire as that of the world, still seemed among the saddest sounds Boromir had ever heard, and for a few minutes they both walked along in silence, each enclosed in their own thoughts, privately pondering.

"What did you do with your time?" Boromir asked suddenly, half-way through a thought of his own on what he would have done if Rhoswen had asked him to wait years before giving him an answer on whether she loved him. (This thought was pre-supposed by the idea that he would have made the first gambit in their little chess game, a very wild notion to him, all histories considered.)

Rinnelaisse turned to look at him, surprised at his voice. "My mother always knew I had a wandering soul. I never sat still, would never remain at a task for longer than was needful. I returned to my home, took my bow and my pack and went out to see the rest of the world that my people had all of forgotten. First to Esgaroth, and the kingdom of Dale, then west along the River Running, out to the sea of Rhun where the grasses stop growing and the sand dunes run for miles like an inland sea. Through the Brown Lands and the Calenhardnon, down the Anduin and into Umbar of the Corsairs. But never west of the Misty Mountains. I did not think I could ignore the call of the sea if I should venture near the Grey Havens and the Harbors of the White Towers."

"Did you ever see the White City, Lady?" Boromir asked, tentatively. Suddenly he was anxious to know what this old and wise woman thought of the place from whence he came, once more a child looking for favor from adults.

"When last I was in Gondor, Ecthelion was Steward. Your grandfather Ecthelion," she added, at the unasked question in Boromir's eyes. "Though … he would not have called me _Lady_ as you do. Halendron was my name to the Steward. Yes," she smiled at Boromir's sudden surprise, "I went to accompany a friend, and a woman, even an elfmaid, was not a welcome companion of the road even in those times."

"I not have minded sharing any road with you, Lady," Boromir said fairly. "You have been any man's equal on this journey." And it was true, she had been any man's equal, in hunting or tracking or even in the simplest of wayfaring, minding the road and keeping a watchful eye on the horizon. Boromir could not think of another woman like her in all of his acquaintance – but then, he reminded himself, they asked different things of women in Gondor. Perhaps his cousin Lothiriel might have matched her, if she had been allowed to learn from a young age. "And you were never taken for a woman?" He asked suddenly.

"The ways of the elves seem strange to the Men of the South then, even as they are now," Rinnelaisse said, and though there was no ill judgement in her voice as she said it, Boromir flushed and looked away. "I had a man's height and a man's name, and a man's skill with bow and knife besides. No one questioned that I did not share their fondness for ale-houses and the women of the lower town." She smiled, secretly remembering some bit of merriment from that long-ago time. "Yes…well was it know that Halendron and Thorongil were not for the games of other men."

"Thorongil – was he another elf who went with you?" Boromir asked, still full of some kind of childish curiosity. Rinnelaisse gave one of her vague smiles.

"Ask Aragorn to tell you more of Thorongil, when you see him next. He knew much of him, in those days."

Boromir smiled thinly. _Speak to Aragorn about his memories? And perhaps Sauron will surrender today as well._ "I do not think he would speak to me of such things, Lady. There is…little love between the Dunedain and myself."

The elf-maid turned on him, and Boromir saw in her face the expression of a vexed tutor struggling with her charge's indolence, or, closer still, a mother unimpressed with her son's poor excuses. "You have more in common with Aragorn than you think, son of Denethor. Better you talk with him now than on the border of Gondor when all other choices have been made." Her glare – for indeed it was a glare, a daggering flash of her eyes in his direction – almost made him cower. "Talk to him of happier times, with light words. Then speak of what troubles you."

She said no more on that subject for the rest of their walk, nor did Boromir ask. The matter of Aragorn, of who and what he was, had indeed vexed him since the Council of Elrond, a seemingly petty matter that grew less and less petty, and by degrees less easy to ignore, the closer they drew to home. Aragorn, son of Arathorn, son of a line of humbled rangers and hedge knights leading back to the fabled blood of the sons of Isildur. Aragorn called Hope who looked to return to the city of kings and reclaim his rightful throne – the throne above the Steward's chair, the throne that made that black, unadorned seat as lifeless and useless as the stone it was carved from. And where is the House of Hurin to go, when the House of Elendil returns? _Where is the place for me, a son of the Stewards who ruled in your stead?_

Boromir didn't much care about the throne of the Steward. Most of his life he had been content to ignore it, a matter that had angered his father greatly. Denethor had always been concerned with how he would be remembered, and his sons were the first thing he knew the historians would be able to attribute to him. It gave him no small share of grief that his firstborn seemed to have no interest whatever in ruling Gondor. Boromir had always preferred the simple life of the sword, as he called it, and left the matters of state to his father and his brother. But Faramir was not made for affairs of state either – he was too fair, too even-minded for the games the court played. _We were neither of us born to be rulers,_ Boromir mused. _Faramir, perhaps, in an earlier time, but not our time._

In his previous existence, the mythical return of the king meant little to him; kings have always had a need for fighting men. All the stories confirmed this need, and given the present climate, Boromir knew this to still be true. That was what he was, all that he had aspired to be – a warrior, a defender of what he found good in the world. But Rhoswen…Rhoswen complicated things. In a pleasant way, Boromir admitted to himself with a slim smile. With her in his life he could not simply be a warrior; he had realized that long since. He would be a husband, and, if the gods were good, a father.

His words at the council of Elrond echoed in his mind. _Gondor has no king. Gondor __**needs**__ no king_. Given how he had received Aragorn on their first meeting, he was not sure how any son of his would be received in his turn_. In the old tales, men and their sons were put to death for less than aspiring to thrones they did not belong to_, Boromir thought darkly.

_But __**I**__ do not want that throne_, Boromir realized. _I have never wanted it. Ever it was my father's ambition to be a king, and I did not share it. And no son of mine shall want it either. I have wanted to serve, and that is what my sons shall wish for, too. Perhaps Gondor does need a king, in these dark days. I was too blind to see it in Rivendell, but as we have journeyed, is it not Aragorn that leads us, and not me? _

Yes – that simple fact was true. Aragorn was their sole leader, now that Gandalf was gone, and he had led them well, for the short time the responsibility had been his.

Boromir wandered back to the camp site, his mind made up, his thoughts clearer than they had been in many months. Perhaps it was something about Lorien that helped the mind, or healed it, or some such work, or perhaps it was only talking with the eternally composed Rinnelaisse that had calmed his thoughts.

Aragorn was apart from the camp a ways, deep in his own thoughts, one of the small white flowers that seemed to grow abundantly in certain parts of the wood. Away from the tidy mess of camp, he seemed a different man, and there was a kind of elvish cast on his features that (Boromir was almost ashamed to think it) made him seem more like a hero of the old tales than he might have seemed previously.

"Is it a good memory?" he asked, interrupting Aragorn's thoughts with a suddenness that surprised him.

The Dunedain looked up, the flower nearly falling from his hands. "Yes," he said, "One of the best. It has been many, many years since I was last in Lorien. The years fall darkly on me, but not the memories of this place…and what has passed here." He laid the flower aside, and glanced at the expanse of mossy log next to him, a silent invitation to sit.

"I learned this morning that Rinnelaisse is also familiar with the Golden Wood," Boromir remarked. "She told me of her childhood and fosterage here with the Lady Galadriel…and of a friend she made during that time. Thorongil."

Aragorn's expression changed, first to surprise, then fading back to reminiscence. "It is many, many years since anyone made mention of that name," He admitted. "What did Rinnelaisse tell you of Thorongil and his time in Gondor?"

"Nothing," Boromir admitted. "She said I might ask you. Was he a…a friend of yours?"

Aragorn smiled wryly. "He was. He …taught me much about the world, and the ways of the people in it. He was a captain of Gondor under the rule of Ecthelion, your grandfather - and of Rohan, too, when he served Thengel for a time."

"How did he serve my grandfather?" Boromir asked.

"He rode to war in the east, in Osgiliath, and in Ithilien, for a time, and journeyed to the south, to Umbar and the villages of the Corsairs, where he distinguished himself by strength of arms, and leadership."

"Such a man would be well- welcomed in Gondor!" Boromir said richly. "In my grandfather's day we had few such captains in our Companies that can boast of such a long string of deeds. You must be blessed, if you can count a man such as that among your friends," the Gondorian said fairly, meaning every word.

Aragorn's eyes were shining with the memory, and his gaze was distant. "Indeed. Alas that it was not enough for the father of the woman he loved," he added quietly.

For a while both men sat in silence, both contemplating the fate of such a man. "I love a woman who would give me cause to do such deeds as well," Boromir admitted. "She waits for me in Minas Tirith, and I do not think a day goes by when I do not think of her by some turn or another. And I think about what she will do for me, when I return to the city." He smiled and looked at Aragorn. "Have you ever seen the White City arrayed for a homecoming, Aragorn? The White tower of Ecthelion, glimmering like a spike of pearl and silver, it's banners caught high in the morning breeze? Have you ever been called home by the clear ringing of silver trumpets? There is all cheerfulness, and joy, and great circumstance…and the arms of a woman who loves you at the end of it all." He broke off into silence, contemplating the sight.

"I have seen the White City," his companion said, "Once, long ago. I do not think it was all as you described. But perhaps it can be so again."

Boromir nodded, thinking very hard about what he wanted to say next. "I spoke in haste, at the Council. I did not know then what I know now. I have seen and done much with you on this journey that has changed my mind about…about the rule of Gondor. My father is a noble man, but his rule is failing, and our… our people lose faith. He looks to me to make things right and I would do it. I would see the glory of Gondor restored to the splendor of the kings of old. But I find I cannot do such work alone. And for that…I ask your pardon, and your good grace. There it is." He rushed through the last several words, letting them tumble out in a torrent rather than a well measured stream. "And perhaps when we return, the tower guard shall take up the call that the lords of Gondor have returned!"

Aragorn smiled. "It would not be a bad homecoming," the ranger admitted, and for a moment, the two men shared a brief smile, Aragorn's understanding and Boromir's relieved. Well, that is one battle avoided, Boromir thought to himself. Let us see if we cannot similarly avoid more.

How many days they passed in Lorien it was impossible to tell. Time did not seem to follow the same tether in the Golden wood; the days seemed longer or shorter or, if such a thing were possible, more fruitful or full. Boromir and Aragorn did not speak again of Gondor, or the homecoming they might have there, but to all the others, there seemed an unspoken friendliness between them that had not been there before. Of this matter Rinnelaisse said nothing, though Boromir did catch her at moments glancing at them sidelong with a slight smile. He supposed that was only what passed for a victory smile for her. _Yes, Lady, I have followed your advice, and it has borne fruit. You are allowed to smirk at that._

They were preparing to leave before anyone realized how much time had gone by – after a lengthy conversation with Rinnelaisse and Aragorn, the Lord Celeborn had bidden his people to prepare boats, loading them with supplies of every kind needed for a journey down the great river Anduin.

Boromir knew enough of Anduin in his own land, from the white-rocked isle of Cair Andros to the North all the way down to the Bay of Belfalas. But above Cair Andros the river was a stranger to him. Once Gondor had extended so far north, but no longer – years had worn away the lands formerly claimed by the kings of old. Some had been given away, as Rohan had been, for help in battle, and others, like the far reachs of Ithilien beyond the Crossings at Poros, were merely falling away, too remote to send for aid when attacks came from outside and too far removed from the customs and laws of Gondor to care if some desert lord claimed them as his own. _But perhaps that will change when the king comes again,_ Boromir thought with a smile._ Perhaps we can win those lands back to us._

To Pippin and Merry, the youngest of the company, she gave small knives of some great parentage, and to Samwise, ever the practical one, seeds from her garden and elvish rope made of hithlain, supposedly made by the Lady herself, one of the arts Rinnelaisse had doubtless been instructed to learn. Frodo received a curious vial filled with water from the Lady's well, and Gimli, asking boldly, received a lock of the luminous hair that had so transported him into flights of fancy when they were first received by the lady. Aragorn's gift was small but obviously significant to him – a brooch set with a large green emerald, fashioned in the shape of an eagle, and Rinnelaisse received a bow, longer and of finer craftsmanship than the one she had carried with her from Mirkwood, a gift that gave both giver and receiver a curious smile.

When Galadriel came at last to Boromir, standing at the end of the line, as far away as he could from the searching eyes of the Lady, he almost could not bring himself to meet her gaze. "I had a gift to give you, Boromir son of Denethor, that I knew you would receive kindly – a belt and scabbard for the sword you have born so gallantly. But certain words between my niece and I have changed my mind, and so I give you another, no less fitting."

His gaze slow rose to meet hers, still feeling very much like a schoolboy about to be scolded. Yet when his eyes met Galadriel's, it was not fear that resonated in him, but warmth and a strange kind of comfort. She smiled.

"A gift for someone who is not here but for the memories in your heart. Your betrothed is fond of herblore, I am told. Take this to her, with my greeting." She held out a leather wallet, carefully tooled on the outside with Elvish letters Boromir could not read. Opening it, a sweet smell met his nose, and he found, in several clever pockets, an expanse of dried and bundled herbs. "They are from my garden, and have a high linage, and power above what she will find in your own lands. They should give her great help in the days ahead. For the days are coming when the hands of a healer will be more precious than jewels." She glanced at the rest of the company, and her eyes for a brief moment met with Aragorn's. "Wear it close to your heart," the Lady said, turning back to Boromir. "It will remind you of her, while you are parted."

"She will be most grateful, Lady. As am I, for the thought of her." Boromir said humbly, meaning every word of it. The Lady smiled as if she knew something he did not, and merely nodded in reply before she turned her attention to the rest of the company.

What she said after that Boromir did not really hear – his mind was back in Gondor, in a small walled garden filled with roses.

* * *

I started thinking of this chapter as three mini-chapters, hence the three epigraphs; it was originally going to be four, but I'm impatient and I want to give you all something to read before the holiday season sets in. (Also, it was an excuse to use three bits of poetry I really, really liked.)

And, God be praised, I find myself busy! My job is going well – I'm now settled in to the point where I have an excess of things to do rather than a dearth, which is getting to be a little wearing. It never rains but it pours, I guess. I've also taken on some volunteer gigs, so my free time is spent learning how to be a better tour guide for two historical house museums. Very fun, but a little distracting when one wants to write in the medieval world and one's mind is in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

I realized while I was writing this chapter that my style differs from Tolkien's in that my style of writing gives much more time to the interior lives of the characters, their thoughts and so forth, and I further realized that I'm not really sure what Boromir's interior life should sound like. From description given in the books, he's actually a very straightforward character, (suited to the 'life of the sword' if I may be so bold as to quote myself) and I'm not sure all this thinking and ruminating suits him. For whatever out of character bits this chapter contains, I apologize.


	24. Chapter 24

On the fleet streams, the Sun, that late arose,  
In amber radiance plays; the tall young grass  
No foot hath bruised; clear morning, as I pass,  
Breathes the pure gale, that on the blossom blows  
And, as with gold yon green hill's summit glows,  
The lake inlays the vale with molten glass:  
Now is the year's soft youth, yet one, alas!  
**Cheers not as it was wont; impending woes  
Weigh on my heart; the joys, that once were mine,  
Spring leads not back; and those that yet remain  
Fade while she blooms.** Each hour more lovely shine  
Her crystal beams, and feed her floral train,  
But oh with pale, and warring fires, decline  
Those eyes, whose light my filial hopes sustain.

-Sonnet XCI, by Anna Seward

* * *

"Well, that is the last of it," Lothíriel said with a grim smile as she closed the lid on the last box of End-Year finery. All the masks and dresses and jewelry had been carefully packed away to wait until next year's revels. "And now life must return to how it remains the rest of the year," she said sadly.

She looked up, looking for some kind of response from Rhoswen, but her friend was wrapped up in the winter light from the window, reading a letter and in very deep thought. The Amrothian woman moved closer, and Rhoswen looked up to see what Lottie wanted from her.

"Who writes to you?" Imrahil's daughter asked, gesturing for a pair of servants to take the trunk away.

"My brother Carnil," Rhoswen said. "He sends my father's best wishes, and his wife's news. My nephew is nearly walking, he says," she relayed with a wide smile. Too wide, Lothíriel judged.

"But something in it troubles you, Rhos. Do not deny it – you have your grim face on behind that smile and this news of your nephew. Remember – no lies between us."

Rhoswen smiled guiltily. "He reminds me I have been long away, and asks me when I will return home."

"Home…to Anfalas?"

"Home to Minas Tirith," Rhoswen corrected, her lips tight. "He thinks I have been neglecting my duties there – though he does not openly say as much in his letter." She scanned the missive and read aloud. "'I have favorable reports from our brothers in Dol Amroth, and I am glad that you are among people and friends who care for you so graciously. But—' see, here is his objection, 'I do not wish your friends in Minas Tirith to forget your love as well.'"

"He means Uncle," Lottie said blackly. "Forget your love, indeed."

"And perhaps he is right, Lottie!" Rhoswen said reasonably. "Aunt Ivriniel is leaving in a few days to return to her home on the coast. Perhaps it is time for me to return to Minas Tirith as well. I have been gone four months. Surely you can see it is not needful for me to stay any longer."

"And you shall just abandon me here like that?" Lottie asked, indignant. "The holidays over, Aunt Rin going back to Belfalas, and you leaving as well? Am I to starve for company and entertainment?"

"I am not leaving you totally alone in the world, Lottie," Rhoswen reminded mischievously. "I am not taking Lucan back to Minas Tirith with me."

Lottie gave a little gasp and turned to her friend with a wide gaze, laughing. "Do mine ears deceive me? That is tantamount to your blessing, Rhos! Does this mean the haughty Lady Rhoswen approves of her friend's liaison with her brother?"

"No," Rhoswen defended. "No, I still think you both are full of folly. But perhaps in the days ahead there will be times and places for a captain of little renown to show his quality, and gain advancement."

"His new rank suits him, does it not?" Lottie added with enthusiasm. In the wake of the New Year, Imrahil had promoted Lucan from the general ranks of the Swan Knights to a captaincy and a post within the household itself as one of his grooms. It was a change that suited Lottie very well – Lucan was now forever in the family chambers, fetching and carrying for his master. Rhoswen shook her head at her friend and smiled. "At least say you will stay till after the courts of love," Lottie pleaded, returning to the business at hand. "Iorlas must be there to show his talent in the Arguments, and the Recitations. And we have not had new voices in so many years! It will be so good for him, if he wishes to gain some renown. It will be good for you to be there with Aunt Rin and Mother. It shows leadership and culture," Lottie impressed. "And Erun must come. He has told me he is not going on progress with Father, and we must have some gentlemen there."

"Lottie, I am not packing up and leaving this instant!" Rhoswen reminded. "Yes, we shall not leave until after the Courts. I am not as heartless as that."

Ivriniel and Heledirwen had decided after the End-year revels to hold a Court of Love; Imrahil and his sons would be gone on the annual military progress throughout Belfalas, inspecting defenses and reviewing troops, and his wife and sister did not want to be entirely without entertainment while most of the men were gone.

"When Isildur courted his wife, they say he wrote her poetry to tell her of his love. Great, sweeping poems about her beauty and her courteous grace. It is sad that men have lost their fine tongues for such things; I cannot count above a dozen men of my acquaintance capable of turning a poem to turn a woman's heart."

Rhoswen sighed heavily. "Not everyone's tongue was meant to speak in honeyed words, Lottie. And life is not always worthy of a poem. I know mine seldom is."

Lothíriel elbowed her friend, hard, and frowned. "Your life certainly is! A winsome lady, plucked from obscurity to be the wife of a handsome prince. Kept apart by the intrigues of a foreign power… those are the stories poems are made out of."

"Boromir could not write me a poem if he tried, Lottie," Rhoswen said reasonably. "He's your cousin; you know him enough to know that!"

"I also know if he couldn't do it himself he'd get someone to do it for him, if he knew it would make you happy."

"And what kind of love-making would that be?"

"We shall have to ask Yoneval," Lothíriel said fairly. "I'm sure men ask him all the time to compose verses for their lady-loves. Perhaps …women as well," she added, none too subtle in her tone. Rhoswen looked at her, aghast.

"Lottie, you didn't." Rhoswen laid aside her letter and stood up, advancing across the room as Lottie beat a hasty retreat backwards.

"Didn't what?" Imrahil's daughter asked innocently, playing at being obtuse when Rhoswen knew full well she wanted to be caught. Lothíriel loved sharing secrets too much to let one of her good ideas pass by without some acknowledgment.

"Didn't ask Yoneval to write one of his silly romances involving Lucan and you!" she accused.

"They're not silly!" Lothíriel said, by way of acknowledgement, noticing she was dangerously close to being backed into a corner, literally and metaphorically. "And he shall not use our names – that would be uncouth. Perhaps," she began, her eyes lighting up the way they always did when she knew her scheme would annoy Rhoswen particularly, "I shall have him write another poem to celebrate someone else…it could be the story of Blanchefleur and…Ursus, who has been turned into an evil creature by an malicious sorcerer and must be turned back by the touch of the lovely maiden!"

It was too much. Rhoswen had hoped her friend had forgotten her ridiculous dream of several nights previously, but it was evident that she had not, and now Lottie was using it against her. Well, there would be little of that. Rhoswen grabbed for the nearest projectile - her pillow from the bed - and heaved it across the room, missing by a narrow margin and sending the pillow flying towards the door instead, startling the maidservant who had just come in to tend the fires. The poor woman had only just woken up from a hastily taken nap, and did not expect to be greeted by the unladylike shrieks of two nearly grown women laughing and haphazardly chasing each other around the chamber, throwing pillows as though they were seven again.

Erun, too, was not expecting such an entrance into Lothíriel's room as the one he got that day, but then, he might have expected something after meeting the maid in the corridor in quite a state and almost entirely lost for words. Opening the door into the women's chamber to announce a game of merels in Amrothos' rooms, he stopped short and took in the scene for a moment, politely confused as a few feathers floated to the floor. "What on earth…"

Lottie and Rhoswen stopped, two women far too old for pillow fighting frozen in motion. Then, just as spontaneously, both of them burst out laughing, nearly collapsing in a heap in the middle of the mess they had made.

"Have you both lost your wits?" Erun asked sharply, looking around at the chaos of the room.

"Very probably," Lottie said promptly, sending both women into hales of laughter again.

"Well, when you have found them again, Amrothos thought we might have a game of merels before he leaves on progress tomorrow." Erun cast a glance around the room and frowned. "Though I don't know if you shouldn't clean this mess up first." A wayward feather, carried on a current of air from they knew not where, floated languidly through the air, landing innocently on Erun's shirt sleeve as the three of them watched, transfixed. Rhoswen's brother frowned and with a heavy hand brushed the thing away before turning on his heel and making a hasty exit.

"I do not think I have laughed so hard since I was a child," Rhoswen said, trying to slow her rapidly beating heart.

"Sometimes I think you are far too serious, Rhoswen. Sometimes," Lottie said, slowing her own breathing down in fits and starts, "Sometimes I think it is your seriousness that made you come here in the first place. And Minas Tirith has no more need of gravitas. It needs light, and laughter! And I hope you do not forget laughter, when you leave here."

Rhoswen smiled at her best friend despite herself and glanced around the room. "We should probably clean some of this up before we leave. Doubtless Amrothos will want to nettle us about it, if Erun tells him."

"Always the practical one," Lottie complained, shuffling a small pile of feathers aside with her foot and temporarily rousing them from the floor. "But you will promise me, won't you? That you'll remember to laugh?" Her voice was serious, desperate, even. A strange request, even from Lothíriel. _It is not so dark as that, Lottie_, Rhoswen thought to herself.

"At least once a day, Lottie. Now, how do you propose we clean this up?"

* * *

We were wondering what kept you," Amrothos said, rising and greeting his sister and cousin-in-law with kisses. "Up to some mischief, I suppose?" he asked, extracting a lonely feather from Rhoswen's hair. Rhoswen looked at Lottie and the two of them snickered. "Hark at them, Erun! You shall have quite the time keeping them in line while we are gone."

"That much I do not doubt," Erun said gravely, frowning deeply at them despite the obvious jest in Amrothos' voice. "If they can cause such a commotion without provocation I do not know what a solid week of love poetry and pretty songs will do."

"Oh, have a little faith," Amrothos countered. "All the temptation is leaving the city with us!" he announced jovially, laughing along with the rest of the young men gathered in his rooms, sons of Dol Amroth's great families who held knighthoods and captaincies in the Prince's guard and household. "Now, who shall drink some of this excellent Dorwinion with me?" he said, holding aloft a flagon to general shouts of merriment, the game of merels Lottie and Rhoswen had been promised forgotten for the moment.

It was, to be certain, a young men's party, one last splash of riotous amusement before all of them would be required to behave with dignity and honor in accordance with the elevation of their station. Rhoswen smiled and joked and laughed with everyone, even going so far as to sing with a few of them when someone produced a lute and pipes, something that Amrothos pronounced 'a high honor' and awarded her a kiss for afterwards to the general amusement of all.

All, that is, except Erun. When Rhoswen pulled away from Amrothos, flushed and a little angry and more than a little confused about how she felt about being kissed on the lips in such a raucous company as this one, she could just see her brother in the corner, scowling, his wine untouched on the table beside him.

"Will you not join the party, Erun? You look so dour over here by yourself."

"You are drunk," Erun said flatly, his frown still much in evidence. Rhoswen laughed nervously and glanced at her cup.

"I have had just this one glass over the hour, Erun, and it is not yet empty, and no one has filled it – I have seen to that. I am all in my senses." She looked at his stormy brow and then ventured, "Are you in yours?"

"I am not betrothed to the Steward's son, and I have not allowed his youngest cousin to kiss me in the company of a crowd of drunken fools!" Erun said suddenly, rising from his chair and turning away from her with such vigor that the table shook and his glass nearly went flying had not Rhoswen been there to steady it.

"Erun, what is wrong? There is a deal more here than Amrothos and a few wine-soaked noblemen," Rhoswen observed, trying to turn him back towards him with one hand. "I cannot fix what you do not tell me about."

Erun looked at his sister again, and Rhoswen saw clearly now that there was anger in his eyes, but a kind of fear also. "I have had news from Minas Tirith. They say the Steward has met with some of the first families of the city, and their daughters have been mentioned. Young daughters, not yet married. They say he grows suspicious with your continued absence."

Rhoswen's mind raced. Denethor's wish had been for Boromir to bed her in Osgiliath, that much had been quite plain. That had been summer, and it was just nearly spring – almost enough time to bring a child into the world. He might have mistaken her illness and melancholy for pregnancy, but it was a long cry from the actual signs. And now he was meeting again with the families of the City. "You think he means to cast me aside – break the contract he has made with Father, and the pledge that Boromir and I attended to in the company of all those witnesses?"

"He needs but a reason, Rhos," Erun plead with her. "Father has no power and no allies in the City. Denethor could do such a thing, and no one would bat an eye. And all this, here, with Lottie –" he gestured around the room, and Rhoswen saw it for a moment as the riot it was. "You must go back, and soon."

"Carnil has told me the same," Rhoswen said. "I mean to do it, Erun, but I must stay for the Courts of Love. Lottie would be heartbroken if I left now. Let Denethor wait another week. I must have my friends and diversions, too."

"Very well – but do not give him cause, sister. Boromir is not here to change his mind in matters of propriety." Erun plead. Rhoswen nodded silently, setting down her still-unfinished wine cup and heading for the door. She talked with no one on the way out, and no one saw her go.

* * *

"We missed you leave at Amrothos' rooms last night," Lottie said as she examined herself in the mirror to begin preparations for the day. The military column had gone, riding out in the early morning dawn with more than a few haggard and hung-over guardsmen in the corps who had indulged a little too much the night before. "Someone got up to sing 'Who wished to hunt' to you, and you were not there."

"I felt tired," Rhoswen lied, examining her letter in the light of the window. The lie stung at her lips, and she reconsidered. "No – that is not true. Erun was not pleased with my behavior last night," she corrected. "I spoke with him, and it was decided I should leave."

"Erun is not your keeper!" Lottie said angrily. "Well, he is, in a way, but he should not own your mind. Were you not enjoying yourself? "

"No, no, Lottie, I had a fine time," Rhoswen amended, though the memory of Amrothos' kiss stung a little, too. She had not been kissed in a long while, and she wished to high heaven it would happen again, though she also wished the lips that had done the kissing were different ones. "Erun had a letter from a friend in Minas Tirith – just as I had one from Carnil. They spoke of much the same thing."

Lottie tried to remember what they had talked of yesterday. "Erun wants you to return early, too?" she cried suddenly, slamming her hands on the table before her and making the pots and baubles on the surface jump a bit.

"There is talk in Minas Tirith that he takes to mean Denethor will break our engagement," Rhoswen said softly. Lottie's jaw dropped, and she pivoted quickly around her chair.

"Can he do that? You have been pledged in front of witnesses – the contracts have been signed! And Boromir loves you!"

"Boromir is not here," Rhoswen reminded, scowling slightly herself. "The opinion of an absent man is easily unheard and easier ignored, and Denethor can do what he likes regardless. Love counts for little in marriages of state – you know that as well as I do. I am not rushing away, Lottie – I decided that before Erun's news came. But now I must go back, it seems, if I want to keep the life that was promised to me." She sighed, and then for a long while was silent, her hands hiding her eyes. It took a moment for Lottie to realize she was crying softly. The Amrothian sprang up from her chair, going to her friend's side and placing her arm around her shoulders. "I wish he were home, Lottie!" Rhoswen said with a sniffle, wiping the tears out of her eyes. "Not because I need him, though I am sure I do, but because everyone else seems to need him as well. I do not know what Denethor will be like after he has been gone so long. He could be dead, Lottie, and we would not know!"

"You would know," Lottie said, perhaps a little unhelpfully, rubbing Rhoswen's shoulder. "And you do not need Boromir any more than a bird needs a cage in order to sing. Perhaps he makes you better than what you are – but you are already strong on your own. Denethor will remember that, if indeed he could be prevailed upon to forget it. Now, dry your tears, and help me pick out what to wear. Today we will hear the songs, and I wish to look the part of a member of a joyful company."

Today songs, sung and played, and tomorrow recitations of the epics. The day after performance of love ballads and mourning odes, and the final day the arguments. It was such a lot for such a short number of days, but they would hear it all, as knights in older days had held competitions in war games over a week's time. They fought with swords and spears and in a mock battle called the melee, and here, as Yoneval had said, they would carry on the tradition with pens for spears and witty words for rapiers.

Iorlas had asked permission to use the poem he had written of the hunt and the hind as one of his pieces, and Rhoswen had agreed, even if the song seemed to her to be getting a little ragged around the edges. Every member of Ivriniel's merry band of minnesingers and troubadours was in a fine state, mending their finery, tuning instruments and practicing new lyrics, and there were others coming up from the town for the occasion and the prizes that could be won.

Such prizes! Rhoswen and Lottie took one last look at them before going down to the great hall, where the competition would begin. A great cloak pin, jeweled like a peacock, and a feather pen and inkwell that had been gilded over with the thinnest layer of gold leaf, work so fine the feather still retained the lines of the original's shape. Signet rings and jeweled instrument picks worked in hammered gold, and a troubadour's traveling cloak, brilliantly blue and embroidered around the edge with an elvish rendering of a tale of old. All princely gifts, worthy of whatever hand they would fall to at the Court's close on the last day of the week.

The hall, too, was brilliant with the trappings of the event, and the people in it, too. The dais had been covered with large carpets of purpled carmine and deep blue, and the chair where Heledirwen would sit as High Judge was made over with cloth of gold. Lothíriel's mother had not taken her seat yet, but was down on the floor talking with the rest of her ladies, her diadem sparkling in the morning light. Someone announced the arrival of the Ladies Lothíriel and Rhoswen, and the Princess of Dol Amroth turned to greet her daughter and near-niece.

"We have been waiting a little for you," Heledirwen whispered in her daughter's ear. "Were your revels with your brother a little later than expected?"

"She was helping me," Rhoswen said by way of an excuse, exchanging a quick glance with Lottie before she could confirm or deny her mother's accusation. "I could not decide what to wear."

Heledirwen raised one imperial, skeptical eyebrow, and smiled. "I thank the gods I never had another daughter," she said with a smile. "What scheming little girls get up to. Just like sisters, the two of you are."

"But are not sisters loyal, too, mother?" Lottie said earnestly, putting on her most endearing smile and helping her mother up the stairs and to her seat. "And sisters may be of good influence, too, and good council."

Her mother nodded, but said nothing, smiling at Rhoswen with a knowing glance as the younger woman arranged herself in her own chair, next to the throne where Ivriniel would sit as the guest of honor. The crowd was nearly assembled – they would start soon.

"Gentle lords, good ladies, friends from distant lands and strangers from our doorsteps, welcome this day to the courts of love!" Princess Heledirwen said extravagantly, spreading her arms wide in welcome and revealing for a moment the same kind of exuberance her daughter exhibited daily. A loud wave of clapping met her welcome, and she waited for it to die down before continuing. "We have before us in these next days a rare group of talent from near and far, some whose voices are fair familiar to us and some whose songs have never been heard before this court. We have some of our most learned judges with us," here she smiled, and gestured to Ivriniel, who bowed her head to more raucous clapping, "and some close students of the law whose worth has yet to be tested or shown. " The Princess of Dol Amroth waved her hand in the direction of Rhoswen and Lottie, and both young women bowed their heads in acknowledgement, Rhoswen blushing a little under the cheers from the crowd. "Gentlemen and ladies of the court, are you ready to pass judgment upon those who will come before us?"

The crowd gave their hearty and assenting cheer. "And you, our noble troubadours, singers and players, students and masters both of Love's Law, are you ready to present your cases?"More cheers again, this time still louder. "Then," Imrahil's princess said, shouting regally over the clamor, "Let the courts begin!"

* * *

"Yoneval won for the epics, of course, he always does, and a woman, Edurne, from Southern Rohan, won for song with the lute. It was so pretty, and so heart-rending, 'Rothos, you should have heard it."

"And Yoneval's protégé? Rhoswen's guardsman? Did he do as well as anticipated?" Amrothos raised his cup of wine and nearly drained it dry - after traveling for the better part of a month with army rations, no one could say Imrahil's son was unhappy to be back to his own rooms with their many myriad comforts. One, of course, being his sister, and all the news she brought concerning the doings of the Swan City while he had been away.

Lothíriel, for her part, was nearly bubbling over with mirth – that her brother was home, firstly, but that she had such stories to share with him. "Oh, 'Rothos, this is the best part. He won for the debate!"

Amrothos set his cup down in disbelief. "The debate? How? It's never been won by anyone who's not at least fifty and been to less than fifteen Courts!"

"Well, he won it. Or I should say, Rhoswen won it for him."

"Really? Don't leave a moment of that story out."

"Well, Ivriniel and Mama conspired a bit on the last question, I think, and asked if love could exist within the bounds of marriage. Suldaer – you remember him, he used to be a fisherman when he was young and his face looks a bit like chewed-over leather – made a great case about how love can never be forced, and a contract implies force, and Iorlas didn't quite know what to make of the question after Suldaer had stated all his points. He'd done so well in the intermediary debates, but for whatever reason this question completely laid him out. I think he'd wanted to argue the other side – he dotes on Rhoswen, you know."

"You'd have to be living under a rock not to know that, when he's in a room with her. I don't like how that'll look when Boromir gets back from wherever he is."

Lottie impatiently gestured her brother's worries aside. "There's nothing improper about it. Any road, he's standing there, stuttering like a schoolboy, and Rhoswen draws herself up out of her chair and asks if she may assist him, as a courtesy of the court. It's not often done, but someone had called on that right the day before, and I'd had to explain what was happening. Mama gives her permission, and she strolls to the middle of the floor like a queen, and begins giving an example of two people who meet and fall in love and then find out that their parents have arranged for them to be married. She's making such a good argument of it that it's not until she finishes that I realize – and Erun realizes this, too – that she's talking about herself. 'Will their love die because it is now required as well as freely given?'" Lottie quoted happily. "It was beautiful to see, 'Rothos. She really did look like a queen."

"I'm sure you would have looked very queenly too if you defended the institution of marriage in a dignified manner," Amrothos said fairly. "As it is –"

Lottie punched her brother on the arm for presumption, but her smile acknowledged that she agreed with him.

"So Rhoswen and Erun have gone back to Minas Tirith?" the youngest son of Imrahil confirmed. Lottie nodded.

"Back to the lion's den, morelike. There were rumors that Denethor was looking over the daughters of the City again, with an eye to replacing Rhoswen – They wanted to return as soon as possible to see that did not happen. Poor Rhos. She loves Boromir so. I shudder to think what Denethor will do to that marriage when Boromir returns."

"If he returns," Amrothos put in blackly. Lottie turned to him and frowned, her face sad.

"Don't speak so, 'Rothos! He will come back." She turned and looked out the window, taking in the view of the city sweeping away into the east, towards Minas Tirith. "He must come back."

* * *

There was little fanfare in the White City as Rhoswen and Erun returned; the winter season was just ending, and the town lands were still only just waking up to the impending arrival of spring.

The King's House was still as cold and imperious as she remembered it, though anything would seem cold after the warmth and friendly company of Dol Amroth. They had left, as promised, after the Courts of Love were finished. Behind them, somewhere in the guard, Iorlas was sitting high on his horse with his new cloak wrapped around him like some minstrel out of a song. His fellow guards had thought him a bit silly for asking to wear the garishly blue garment, but it was a spoil of war to him, and he would wear it like the badge of honor it was. And if it would bring some of that warmth and laughter to Minas Tirith, Rhoswen thought, staring up at the grave and blank battlements as their horses climbed up to the seventh level, what would the color matter at all?

Denethor did not greet them in the Hall, as was his custom. Instead, the servants showed Rhoswen to his private study, a small room farther back in the house, near the entrance to the Tower of Ecthelion, the tallest part of the castle.

It was enough that she had to face the Steward alone, but Rhoswen was deeply distressed by all that she saw undone in the house - floors unswept, mirrors lightly tinged with dust. _It is good that I have returned_, she thought to herself. _This house needs to be brought in hand. It is clear the Steward has other things on his mind now, if the servants have been allowed to slack so._

"My lord, you have a visitor," his chamberlain announced solemnly from the doorway, and Denethor looked up from his papers, his eyes squinting in the room's poor light as Rhoswen entered.

"Finduilas?"

_Why does he call me by that name? I am no vision, nor a long-dead wife_. "I am not Finduilas, my lord," Rhoswen said carefully, studying Denethor's sudden and wild-eyed look of pain. "I am Rhoswen. Your daughter-in-law," she added. The look of pain retreated from the Steward's face, and he nodded, stern once more.

"Of course," he said, busying himself with his papers. "So you have returned to us, I see."

"Yes, my lord."

"And you are in good health again, I trust?"

"I am in excellent health, my lord. Our cousins were most obliging hosts."

Denethor nodded, busy with his papers and making a great show of desiring not to be disturbed. Rhoswen had meant to ask him if she might formally take charge of the household, as Lothíriel and Aunt Ivriniel had suggested, but seeing the Steward again stilled her heart. He was thinner, more drawn into himself, and after the joy-filled faces of the family in Dol Amroth, Rhoswen wanted nothing more than to leave him to his own devices. He wanted nothing of her; she would give him nothing now in the way of daughterly affection. She felt her spine stiffen, and fixed her face in a polite sort of coldness.

"I will leave you to your work, my lord," she said, making a small curtsey and leaving the room without delay. _He has not changed at all_, she thought to herself as she met Maireth in the corridor, still carrying her traveling cloak._ Boromir knew, though he would not say as much, that his father walked strange ways. That night in Osgiliath, he knew something else held Denethor in thrall. And now I see it, too._

"Send for the house-steward and have him sent to my solar," Rhoswen told Maireth. "Tell him to bring the household accounts and his keys. I mean to settle this now."

The house-steward arrived in due haste, Maireth at his heels like a hunting hound, her face every bit as grim as his was chastised.

"Farchon, that is your name," Rhoswen said, greeting the man from the security of her chair by the fire while the somewhat confused head servant stood on the carpet before her. The servants thought of her as a mere girl, a pretender to the honor of marrying the Steward's son. She meant to change that. She was a girl no longer, and it was her right and duty to take her servants to task. "I am displeased with you, Chamberlain Farchon. I returned from Dol Amroth to find my rooms had not been prepared for my arrival. I also found the whole house in a shocking state of disarray. I expect your maids will be reprimanded for that. By the time I leave this room tomorrow morning, I expect the whole house of the King to be spotless."

"My lady," the chamberlain began, swallowing nervously, clearly shaking in his boots at the strong words from the usually mild-mannered Rhoswen. "We did not know of your coming. All would have been ready, if we had some warning - "

"A good servant does not wait for the commands of his master," Rhoswen replied, her back ramrod straight and her voice pure ice. "He waits and watches diligently, for he knows neither the day nor the hour of his coming. Are we quite clear on my instructions?" The chamberlain nodded. Rhoswen smiled. "Good. Now, I wish for the key to my Lord Boromir's room. Since nothing else has been attended to in my absence, I assume my lord's room has also not been cleaned. I will attend that myself."

Farchon nodded, pulling a great iron loop from his belt and removing from it the key to Boromir's outer door, placing it in Rhoswen's outstretched hand and backing away quickly, as if she might bite him. "When would my lady like dinner to be prepared?" He asked, his voice much more deferential now.

"When has the Lord Denethor been taking his meals?" Rhoswen asked.

"He usually just has the tray sent to his study, my lady," the chamberlain replied.

"Then I shall have the same," Rhoswen said. "It would be wasteful to lay a full table. Now, the accounting books, if you will, Farchon."

Farchon had forgotten the heavy books he was now clutching to his chest like a shield, but he laid them on the table Rhoswen indicated and bowed out of the room as quickly as he could. Rhoswen stared after him for a moment with steely eyes and finally let out a single note of laughter as the loud snap of the door echoed behind him, her stern expression melting away.

"I was a perfect monster, Maireth," she marveled, sinking back into her chair and sighing.

"But he will have this house clean by daybreak, my love, and I do not think he will let the servants slack again."

Rhoswen nodded, flexing her fingers and considering the large key on the table before her. "I shall review the accounts over dinner," she decided, taking the key with her as she stood up.

"And Boromir's room, lady?" Maireth asked, considering the answers she might receive before Rhoswen said anything.

"That is a private matter," Rhoswen said, leaving the room with decision in her every step. Maireth watched her go and smiled privately, moving the dusty account books and wiping her mistress' table clean. She had always known her little charge had a decisive personality, and she was glad to see it being put to some use again. _Let her have her memories for a while_, the maidservant mused. _She needs them_.

The door to Boromir's room opened slowly, the hinges old and difficult from disuse. The curtains were drawn, leaving the room in a strange half-light. She threw them open, sending dust and light flying into the room. She had been in this room only seldomly, at the End-Year last year and only a few times before that. Her rooms were considered a more public space, more fitting to interact in.

His bed was perfect, made up after he had left for Osgiliath those many months ago. But his chair was still pulled back from the writing desk near the window, as if he had just left it. Rhoswen concentrated her stare there, trying to imagine him sitting in the pillar of light from the window, writing…what would he be writing? Letters to his generals? Supply lists? Love poetry?

The last suggestion made her laugh, and her dream Boromir frowned, crumpling up the paper and tossing it behind the wooden form that held his chain mail and plate armor in order, his helm resting at the top, a pale imitation of the man who wore it. That was easier to fill with his image – hadn't she watched him leave for Osgiliath in that very armor? One of his squires must have brought it home, if it was here now. He certainly had not brought it to Rivendell with him, though his scabbard and favorite sword belt were missing, along with his shield. The one that hung on the dummy now was a regulation belt, issued to all soldiers of the Tower Guard, and looked strange with the finely tooled armor. Rhoswen ran her hand along the stamped form of the white tree running along the belt, her finger lingering on the buckle as if she intended to take it off. Rhoswen closed her eyes, wrapping her hand around the cool metal of the buckle and trying to conjure a warm body behind it.

But the image of Boromir in his armor was not a friendly one, only hurried, and a little…frightened? If she thought long enough, she could feel his lips on hers, but they were cold, as if she were being kissed by a ghost.

Along the wall there were several chests, plainly decorated but finely crafted. Rhoswen opened one and pulled back the protective sheets and the sprigs of herbs she had made his servants begin putting in with his clothes so they would not smell, or attract moths. This one was filled with shirts and trousers – simple clothing and underneath (she remembered this chest now) body linen. She had sewn some of these shirts herself, though others were old, made by anonymous seamstresses many years ago. Pulling one out, she inspected it, finding a tiny rip in the cuff from where he'd caught it on something. She'd have to go through these and mend them, or perhaps be rid of some that were far too worn.

Rhoswen closed the chest, taking the ripped shirt with her and wandering through the rest of the Spartan room. There was a pair of slippers next to his bed, simple cloth court shoes with leather soles. It seemed a mouse had been here recently – one of the toes looked chewed and torn.

Someone had fluffed the pillows before he'd left – there was no indentation to lay her hand. Rhoswen climbed onto the bed, tucking her skirts around her legs and peering around the room, setting the shirt aside. It was a view she imagined she'd have to get used to. She lay back, staring up at the plain pattern of the drapery and trying to imagine what this room would be like at night, illuminated only by candles. Boromir's face hovered above her, and she shook her head, trying to clear it. The image wasn't right – the only face that she could see was Boromir at the Midsummer, eyes bright with a flame that frightened her, smile leering at her, threatening. She drew her legs together, pulling them up to her chest and rolling onto her side, shoving her face (inadvertently) into the shirt she'd left lying there.

She took a breath and inhaled his scent, or at least a smell she associated with him, the herbs from the chest and probably from the washing as well, and a certain smell from his sweat. And suddenly he was there, wrapping his arms around her, face close to hers, noses touching. She relaxed, breathing in again deeply. She felt safe again. The enormous ache that had formed in her chest unclenched, letting her breath come easier.

"Rhoswen." Maireth's voice floated into Rhoswen's consciousness, and the younger woman turned over quickly, looking for her maidservant. She hovered in the doorway, her face impassive about the scene in front of her. "You have visitors in your chambers, sweeting." A pause. "They are anxious to see you, or I would not have come."

Rhoswen recovered herself and nodded, sitting up and smoothing her skirts. "I shall be there in a moment, Maireth. Make my excuses, will you?"

"I can take the shirt, if you wish, sweeting," Maireth said gently, and Rhoswen looked down at Boromir's shirt, still in her hand.

"Yes, of course," she said absentmindedly, looking around the room and giving the bedspread one final smoothing before following Maireth out and locking the door. Her servingwoman was already steps down the hall; Rhoswen paused before following, laying her head against the door and closing her eyes for a moment, locking the memory away. She would clean there tomorrow herself – Boromir might be home any day now.

Maireth was just finishing whatever excuse she had contrived when Rhoswen entered the room, tucking her hair behind her ears and wondering who it was that had come on such short notice to see her. What she saw was a pleasant enough surprise.

"Faeldes!" The two women embraced, laughing. "Oh, it is good to see you again, friend," Rhoswen said, smiling and admiring the older woman. When she had last seen Faeldes, her friend was only recently coming to terms with the loss of her husband. But time had at least worn the sheen off of the grief, and Faeldes looked much improved for it. She still wore mourning blacks, but they were relieved by a fair amount of blue – and a smile on Faeldes' face, which worked wonders. "And is that….no," Rhoswen said mischievously, teasing the girl sitting at Faeldes' side. "No, that cannot be little Miriel. When I saw you last, you were at least three inches shorter! And not quite so grown up looking," she added with a smile. The ten year old blushed and ducked her head towards her mother's shoulder in the gesture of embarrassment common to children everywhere.

"Yes, she is grown a little since you saw her last," Faeldes admitted. "She will reach her father's height soon enough, we think."

"Well, when you do, you shall have to come and be one of my ladies. Should you like to do that? I think we might have room for a big ten year old like you."

"I'm eleven now, Lady," Miriel said bashfully.

"Oh, eleven! Well, that settles it! Now we must have you."

Miriel blushed and shrugged closer to her mother again, who laid a hand on her shoulder as if to remind her that Rhoswen could see her. "Per—perhaps if Mama says it is all right," the girl conceded, and Rhoswen laughed.

"Would you like to help me now, Miriel? I have only just gotten back from Minas Tirith, and Maireth is unpacking my trunks. If you like, you can go help her and see all the beautiful gifts I was given there."

Miriel nodded excitedly, and, after exchanging a glance with her Mama for permission, scampered over to Maireth, who smiled and laid a matronly hand on her shoulder, leading her out of the solar and into Rhoswen's sleeping chamber. Rhoswen watched them go and turned back to Faeldes.

"She is very much grown up since last fall," she marveled.

"And you look a little older yourself," Faeldes remarked with a half-smile. "Dol Amroth and its company seem to have suited you exceedingly well. I had news that you presented arguments at the Princess Heledirwen's Courts of Love – and very convincingly, too. I did not know they still kept traditions as antiquate as that in the Swan City."

"The Lady Ivriniel convened them, for Lady Lothíriel's sake and mine. She thought they would be instructive."

"Ivriniel! Many, many years it has been since I heard her name spoken!" the older woman marveled. "I attended one of her courts of love when I was but a child no older than Miriel. She came to the city to be with Finduilas, who was ill at the time. She thought the practice of their childhood might console her, or offer at least a little relief from the melancholy. That must have been only months before she died…" Faeldes trailed off.

"She said she had not been to the city in some years," Rhoswen confirmed. _Denethor must have forbid her return. And did Lottie not say that the bards had been barred from the city these many years past, on Denethor's orders? They reminded him of when his wife was dying… _

"So," Rhoswen said, drawing Faeldes back to her. "What is the news of the city? What have I missed while I have been away?"

The older woman considered. "To tell the truth, the city has been much emptier since the End-Year. Many of the ladies were sent away by fathers and husbands – for the End-Year, it was given out, but they have not returned, and it is a long way past end year. The shadow in the East makes men grow cautious. But Merethel, I know, is back, and will be glad to see you! Her father's house is of late grown very lonely, and I am not much company for a young woman such as her. She has been talking a great deal of your return – and that of your brother, I think…" There was a sparkle in Faeldes' eyes, and Rhoswen sighed.

"I am finding it is a great trial to have handsome brothers, Faeldes, and more about it you shall probably hear a great deal. Merethel will have to come up to visit with us. I was seldom alone in Dol Amroth, and I do not think I could be without company now."

"I am sure she will be glad to hear it. She was so very happy when she heard about the Courts of Love. No such thing has ever been done in her lifetime here; I suppose it all sounds very exotic. Your man Iorlas had better be as good as they say, or I think he will break a few hearts." Faeldes paused for a moment, considering something – another bit of news, perhaps, to judge from the level of contemplation. "Have you had news from the West? From Anfalas or…Pinnath Gelin?" She asked lightly.

Rhoswen raised an eyebrow. "What news is there from Pinnath Gelin that you think I should hear, Faeldes?" she asked plainly, unconcerned. "Is the Lady Serawen well?"

The older woman seemed surprised at Rhoswen's cavalier attitude towards the woman whose wedding had sent her into a state of melancholy, but she went on according to her friend's wishes. "Oh, the Lady is very well, but not to hear her tell it. She is several months gone with child, and it has, understandably, ruined her figure."

"But that is good news! That is the best news. I will send my best wishes to Hirluin, and congratulate him," Rhoswen said sincerely. Serawen she ignored roundly, for what business was it of hers? She was not her friend and had no pretension of being one. If she had learned one thing from Dol Amroth and Lottie, it was that it did not do to worry over what could not be helped. Hirluin might soon have a daughter – a son, if the gods were very kind – and that would be joy enough for her, for if his wife would not love him, a child would. Never mind what the spiteful Lady herself might think on the matter. "Enough of Serawen!" Rhoswen said suddenly, drawing herself up and going to the window overlooking the city, and the Rammas Echor beyond the city's sprawling fields, without spouts in these late days of winter. "What need have we for her here? What news of the Riddermark, or Harad, or Umbar?"

There was a stunned silence in the wake of her bold request, and Rhoswen's shoulders lost some of the decided nature she had put on for her little speech. She glanced at Faeldes and noticed that her friend's expression had turned to that of silent marvel again. She paused and then sighed softly. The commanding, brash virago in her was spent for the day – plain, mild, smiling Rhoswen would have to do for explanations. "In Dol Amroth, Faeldes, the women there are…different. Imrahil's wife and daughter are sometimes consulted on matters of state, and they know what breathes and moves in the world of their city! Princess Heledirwen is one of her husband's best councilors, and if I am to be a steward's wife, I must be knowledgeable the world beyond my walls. It is not just my household that I will rule, but my people, and my people are not only in Gondor. They are merchants and sailors who must travel to foreign places, and how we deal with those peoples will affect them." She glanced eastward, towards the dark mountains there, and her tone changed. How long had it been since she had seen those mountains, and feared what lay behind them, waiting for the chance to strike? "What happens with Mordor will affect them," she added gravely. "I must know the news of the city, and the news of her ambassadors and embassies as well."

"You must come by a great deal of information on your own," Faeldes said sagely, and Rhoswen nodded quickly before realizing her friend had meant it half in jest. "There are a great many ways to gather information, Rhoswen," the older woman reminded her. "You make it sound as though you must go at it alone. I have friends of my husband's who will have some of the information you want. Let me talk to them. They will know of others, and still others, and then, after much wine, and good food, and careful talk, you will have your knowledge, and people to bring it to you. There is time enough yet for all of it. Now, let us sit down and have a meal, General, and then we will plan your campaign."

_My campaign_, Rhoswen thought ruefully, though she smiled for her friend's jest. _What do I know of campaigns, or battles, or the commanding of armies? What do I know of the commanding of houses, come to that? But this is what I have asked for, and this is what I must do. I suppose I shall grow to know the word better._

* * *

I meant to do a deal more with the actual courts of love themselves, but then life happened, and a volunteer position happened, and a second job happened, and at the end of it all I wasn't finding any time for writing at all, so I strung together what I had, puttied over the gaps, and called it a chapter.

This is the part of the story that should be easier to write – we know so much more about what happens in this point in the story! The fellowship leaves the woods of Lothlorien in February, the Fellowship breaks at the end of February. In March we have the battles of Helm's Deep and the Pelennor Fields very shortly after. A lot of Rhoswen's story has to get shoehorned in to that space along with the story we already know and love, and then there's the question of what comes after. (And believe me, a lot comes after, if I have my way.) It's just a lot to write.

So I thank you, friends near and far, for patiently putting up with the snail's pace this story is setting. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your kind words and the small encouragements that come when you put this story on your watch list or your favorites or take that extra moment to tell me to keep at it, no matter what. I appreciate you all so very, very much, and I might have given up on this a long time ago if it wasn't for you.


	25. Chapter 25

It is too early for white boughs, too late  
For snows. From out the hedge the wind lets fall  
A few last flakes, ragged and delicate.  
Down the stripped roads the maples start their small,  
Soft, 'wildering fires. Stained are the meadow stalks  
A rich and deepening red. The willow tree  
Is woolly. In deserted garden-walks  
The lean bush crouching hints old royalty,  
Feels some June stir in the sharp air and knows  
Soon 'twill leap up and show the world a rose.

The days go out with shouting; nights are loud;  
Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold;  
The moon's a sword of keen, barbaric gold,  
Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud.

-Mid-March, by Lizette Woodworth Reese

* * *

There was a stain on his cuff, and it would not do. He had been in such a hurry to leave his house this morning that even the close attentions of his wife had missed it, and now there was nothing to be done about it. Arthion, the Warden of the Houses of Healing, sighed and tried, once more, to scrub the stain out of his sleeve with a rapid fingernail and was once more unrewarded. Any more attempts and the cuff would fray, and that would look even worse.

_Why are you so concerned?_ He heard his wife asking, as she had asked a half a dozen times that morning as he fussed and fretted about what he was to wear to court that morning. _It is just the Lady Rhoswen you are seeing this morning, not the Steward, and she has seen you in a good deal worse_.

Yes, yes, all of that was true. But all the same, it was a matter of personal and professional pride that he should appear at his best before the woman who would one day be the wife of his sovereign. And there was talk that the Lady was much changed since she had returned from Dol Amroth, that she had taken on the airs and graces of a great lady and would not reply favorably to those whose clothes she did not think smart enough or whose gifts were not sufficiently grand. Some said she was going beyond her station, that the daughter of a minor lord from a coastal fief had no business whatever with the haughty show she was putting on, future wife of the steward or not, but Arthion had a hard time believing that the young woman he had met several months ago, the woman who had ground herbs and dug furrows in gardens and held basins for children to be sick into, would ever be really, truly haughty. But then, most of the gossips had not met the Lady Rhoswen. Although there might be new fuel for the fire, after today's meetings with the craftsmen.

The back of the Great Hall was crowded with representatives from the city's various crafting guilds, each wearing their finest clothing and each carrying a petition for the Lady's perusal, as well as a gift to ensure she would remember to read them. Arthion was here for the apothecaries, though his post was mainly ceremonial – they had asked him to take their petition for obvious reasons, that he knew the Lady already and she was known to look favorably upon his voice and opinion. The Favoring Fair, this was sometimes called, and Arthion knew all too well how its outcomes could change the life of a man, or his guild.

After all, had he not won his appointment as Warden of the Houses of Healing from the Lady Finduilas, after she had asked for his services after her own Favoring Fair as a young bride?

He had been a young man then, and Finduilas a young woman, newly brought from Dol Amroth, glowing with the certain kind of beauty that comes out of nervousness and careful manners, and he had been completely won over by his lord's delicate bride, smiling and blushing as her husband, sitting at her arm, lead her through the forms and wordings of the event. It had been easier then to bend his knee and offer his gifts, but it was still easy to admire the sights of the assembled guildsmen and women, and the Lady who sat at the end of the hall, waiting to receive her supplicants. But no husband sat at Rhoswen's side to moderate her words or smiles– Boromir, they said, was still gone in the wilds of the North. Denethor, too, was absent, though he would have little enough role to play in these proceedings anyway. It was a wife's task to keep relations between the Lord and the guild amicable, and a young bride's responsibility to meet the men with whom she would have to treat and trade as a married woman.

Rhoswen and Boromir were not yet married, but she had taken it upon herself to hold the Favoring Fair anyway – a bold move, some might say, but Arthion admired her for it. Finduilas had been overwhelmed by the great circumstance that seemed to surround her every move in the city, the fanfare put on for her by a husband who, knowing full well the twenty years between them, sought to show his love in great displays and grand gestures, and it had shown during her public appearances with him. Rhoswen, however, was different – different even from the woman who had left the city before the winter. Arthion could see that even from the back of the room. She sat in a modestly draped chair with a low back, a concession to the height and power that the Steward's, and, higher still, the King's, chair implied. Unlike Finduilas, whose gaze had flickered back and forth between her husband and her audience, Rhoswen gave off an air of enormous calm, as though she did this frequently and without effort. Her brother Erun stood behind her, and several of her friends moved between her chair and the table where the guilds' gifts were being laid. A small strongbox sat at the foot of her chair, and it was into this fierce looking chest that she herself was placing the petitions – a sure sign to the guilds that she took her duty to them seriously.

The Warden could see who had already submitted their appeals from a simple glance at the table, already heavy with gifts – a set of ink-black sables from the furriers, bolts of cloth in a myriad of colors from the dyers, and a multitude of weights from the fullers and the weavers. A pair of shoes, embroidered on their uppers with roses, from the cobblers, and impossibly tall white wax tapers from the candlewrights. The foodstuffs that the guilds of the millers, butchers, and bakers had undoubtedly been put away, although there was still a box on the table that Arthion thought might contain spices.

The apothecary's guild was being called, and Arthion made his way through the press towards the front of the hall, trying to moderate his step and not appear too eager. From far away the Lady had looked regal, but as he approached, it was the same face and the same ready smile that greeted him as it always had.

"We are glad to see you again, Master Arthion," Rhoswen said without an introduction from the chamberlain, whose job it was to read the list of applicants, or from Erun, who was doubtless helping her remember all the names and faces. "And I look forward to returning to my work in the houses very soon in the coming months."

Arthion nodded, returning her smile and handing over the gift the guildmaster had given him, a pot of beeswax carefully rendered into a salve smelling wonderfully of roses. The perfume escaped the pot without the lid being removed, though Rhoswen did so for effect, and her smile broadened at the smell. "What a lovely gift," she said, and, passing the pot to one of her attendants, took the tightly bound scroll, sealed with the guild's mark in heavy wax, and laid it in her coffer.

And it was over. Arthion stepped away, dazed for a moment that she would only have the barest of moments for him. He stepped back through the crowd, feeling very ready to return home to the honest comfort of his wife and a different pair of shoes that did not bite his toes as these court pair did. He had very nearly left the hall entirely when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Maireth, the lady's handmaid, lurking quietly at the back of the hall. "My lady asks that you stay your leave a while, if it is convenient," the servant whispered in his ear, her face passive. Arthion nodded, suddenly understanding that Rhoswen was playing this game of state far better than he had realized. She had not cut him short, only kept her remarks brief so that she would not be seen to show anyone undue favor while the hungry eyes of the other guilds were watching. When all the others had left, then they would talk.

The Warden lingered in the hall as the crowd dwindled and the table grew more and more crowded and the chest ever fuller. When the last supplicants had make their gifts and departed, Rhoswen waited until the last man had made his exit and the door had shut behind him before she sighed and let her shoulders relax, letting her brother rub them for her for a moment as they exchanged a little bit of laughter.

"Did you see how uncomfortable the man from the tanners looked in his suit? Poor man, it had to have been much too small for him. And that nervous boy from the smiths who rattled on about how it was his father who should have come, but he had been forced since his father was ill and the guildmasters said was his work anyway, and he should present it?"

"It was a very fine piece of trelliswork," Erun admitted, gathering up a loose scroll and setting it back inside Rhoswen's box. "Would you like these in your room, or shall I read them first?"

The lady considered. "Read them first, and leave them for me. I shall look at them before dinner and we will discuss them afterwards. The linen, there, we shall give to the almshouse, and I don't know what we shall do with the wool. The Guards, perhaps, can use it for their families. Faeldes, will Miriel want these shoes?" she asked, businesslike, pointing to the rose-covered pair. "They are far too small for me – I suppose they meant it as a compliment, but even fair ladies in poems cannot be expected to have feet that small."

"My lady," Maireth interrupted, "The Warden of the Houses is waiting for you."

Rhoswen turned, distracted from the delights of the gift-laden table, and nodded, smiling again when she saw Arthion. "How terrible of me. Bring a flagon of wine, and some cups, Maireth, and another chair for Master Arthion. He has been patient waiting for his audience, and even more patient with me after. Master, my apologies for making you wait so. A necessary evil, I am afraid."

"Completely understood, Lady," The Warden said, drawing closer and taking the chair a black-clad servant offered him silently.

"The salve was lovely," she reiterated, and Arthion knew, now, that she had been sincere with him as she may not have been with others, like the well-meaning cobblers. "I shall probably need it when I begin planting my garden again this spring."

"If you have need of more, lady, we can certainly provide it."

"Oh, you shall have to teach me how to make it myself. Ioreth, I am sure, knows how. She is still with you in the houses?"

"Indeed, my lady, and still as talkative as ever she was. She has been looking forward to your return, as we all have been,"Arthion said sincerely.

"I have been looking forward to my return as well, and I hope I will still be welcome in the houses as I was of old. Have you begun planting the herb beds? I had hoped to help with those this spring."

"We would be glad of the help, lady – it has not been attended to, yet," the Warden said. "We have been a little busier of late."

"Busy?" Rhoswen asked politely, pouring the wine and handing the first cup to Arthion before she filled her own.

They talked of this and that as the wine was brought. Rhoswen wanted to know about the weather, about Arthion's children and their friends, about the patients they were seeing now in the houses and what the gardening prospects looked like for the spring. It was everything and nothing at the same time, just little bits of life in Minas Tirith, the price of bread and the shortage of good firewood. It wasn't until Arthion found himself in the middle of a very expansive catalog of the soliders and the injuries they had been seeing coming in from Osgiliath that one of Rhoswen's ladies coughed, and the healer realized how long he had been going on.

"Forgive me, lady – I lost track of the time. I must have been boring you." So focused and committed had been his audience's gaze that he had not seen the others. He had been speaking solely to Rhoswen, caught up in her attention.

"Forgive nothing," the Lady said quickly. "I was intrigued, and shall have to hear more about it at another time. I fear I am keeping you from your patients – and your nuncheon," she added with a smile as Arthion's stomach, empty after skipping the morning meal, grumbled audibly. "Please send my best respects to your wife and daughters. Faeldes, have we something we could send home with Master Arthion? That fabric there will do nicely. Two growing daughters must have new dresses sometime."

Arthion accepted the wrapped bolt of rich russet brown with surprise. "Thank you, Lady! They will be glad of the gift, I am sure."

Rhoswen smiled. "I must be sure to come to the Houses when they are helping you – I am sure they are delightful young women, and I should very much like to meet them."

Arthion nodded again, holding the bundle close to his chest as he bowed his way out of the room, the great doors closing heavily behind him. It was a long, strange walk back to his house with his overlarge bundle, thinking as he went about all the little, unimportant things the Lady had asked about.

"What kept you so long up at the King's house? Your nuncheon's got cold – I didn't know when you'd be back," his wife Luineth said, rising from her seat at the table as her husband appeared in the door. She dismissed the maidservant tending the fire and began laying a bowl and spoon out for her husband herself as he sat down, his stomach giving another audible grumble.

"The Lady Rhoswen wanted to talk with me," the Master of the Houses said, easing off his court shoes and flexing his toes. "But she could not be seen to do so by the other guildmasters. It was a matter of an extra hour, Luineth, nothing more."

"Talking - What about?" Luineth wanted to know.

"Everything," Arthion said, still somewhat bewildered by the whole ordeal. "The price of food, the weather. She asked after you – I told her you were doing very well."

"Oh, and very nice of her ladyship that was, though it doesn't keep your meals warm." Luineth said sharply, swinging a pothook back onto the fire to reheat her husband's stew.

"She sent her apologies for keeping me late, and a bolt of cloth for the girls," Arthion countered, carefully folding back one corner of the wrapping to show his wife the color.

"My word! And you going on about the price of food! I suppose you bored her about the healers and how you've all been overworked lately with all these new casualties from Osgiliaith, too?"

"She seemed most interested in that," Arthion countered, sipping slowly on the soup, still very cold despite its time over the fire. "She asked every kind of question you could think of – how many, and what their wounds were, and their disposition. I could answer very little."

Luineth sniffed and nodded. "Well, then she's not as silly as some, then. She can learn a great deal about the state of the City from what goes on in the Houses – and it sounds to me as though she has."

If Rhoswen had learned a great deal, it was another task entirely to decide what to do with it. The candles in her rooms had already been changed once, and they were burning still as the servants, stifling yawns and trying to keep their tired eyes open, shuffled around Rhoswen's apartments doing a last bit of the days' work while their mistress and her friends sat around the fire, reading the day's documents.

"The weavers complain here about the roads between the city and Anfalas," Erun read aloud in the privacy of Rhoswen's chambers. "They cannot make their cloth if the spinners have no fleeces because of the problem of transport. The blacksmiths, too, complain of the roads, here, and here, though they say the charcoal burners will not provide enough wood because of them."

"Then roads must be on our list," Rhoswen said. "Blacksmiths must have wood to burn, and weavers yarn to make their cloth. We hear nothing from the carters on this? Surely they would be the ones to know?"

"They have no guild," Faeldes said. Rhoswen nodded, rubbing her eyes.

"I will see about the carters, Lady," Iorlas volunteered. "I know what taverns will house them, and a little ale makes anyone a talker."

"Thank you, Iorlas," Rhoswen said sincerely, smiling at the troubadour. "I will make sure you have money for your endeavors. Ale is an expense, however happy you may be in the spending of it." She put her hand to her mouth and yawned again, opening her eyes wider as if to remind herself she was still supposed to be awake. "Now, the next petition, Faeldes-"

But Faeldes would have none of that. "No next petitions for you, my girl. It is a warm sleepy posset and bed, or nothing at all. You are half-asleep in that chair, and so is Lord Erun, though he is trying to hide it for your sake, or the sake of his honor, I know not which."

Rhoswen turned sharply around on her brother, who was just at that moment stifling a yawn, and sighed. Erun shrugged and gave her an apologetic smile. "Oh, very well. But tomorrow—"

"Tomorrow we shall go outside and work in your garden," Faeldes went on. "All work and no water makes for a dead plant. One thing you shall learn when you are married, my girl, is that if you do not take some time for your own problems your husband's become insufferable. So. Let us have no more talk of petitions or petitioners until tomorrow afternoon when we have had some sunshine to cheer us."

"Yes, Mother," Rhoswen said jestingly, getting a knowing smile from Faeldes for her trouble.

"If your own mother were here, she'd say the same."

Rhoswen began piling the petitions back into the chest, but Maireth shooed her away from the work and herded her towards her bed, unlacing a part of her gown so Rhoswen could manage the rest on her own. By the time Maireth had begun braiding her mistress's hair, Rhoswen's eyes were already closed, nodding off to sleep in her chair. Maireth finished her work and shook her charge awake, tucking her into bed as though she were a child of four again. Faeldes lingered at the door, waiting for Maireth to return.

"Do not come over-early tomorrow," Maireth said wisely. "We will let her sleep, and let her be none the wiser of it."

Faeldes nodded. "Does she have trouble sleeping still?"

"Sometimes," Maireth acknowledged. "She is a worrier, and the world has troubles in it she cannot solve. That is what keeps her awake now – not Boromir. She is tired tonight, though – she will sleep enough for tomorrow."

* * *

Rhoswen blinked for a few moments at the pattern of the bed hangings, her eyes adjusting to the half-light seeping in through the curtain-ties. It was brighter than she had expected outside the fabric, lit up with a rosy glow so that every turn and curve in the pattern was illuminated in strange shadow. Sitting up and nudging aside a curtain fold, a blast of sunlight hit her face and she instinctively drew back into the darkness of the bed, eyes smarting.

_Is it really so late that the sun is already up?_

"Maireth," she called, just a little vexed as she pulled herself out of bed, careful to go the other way and avoid the sun for a few moments longer. "You let me oversleep. I told Faeldes – "

"You told Faeldes nothing, my love, except that you would go outside today. Nothing was said of the hour," her maidservant said, helping her into a robe and guiding her half-asleep mistress to her worktable, where a tray filled with food was laid out. Rhoswen opened her mouth to protest, but Maireth was not having any of it. "Complain if you like, lovely, but even the Queens of Numenor ate breakfast before they went and settled affairs of state. And so shall you eat, and get your work done afterwards, if you will stop wasting time with this nonsense of waking up too late."

Rhoswen frowned and bit dutifully into a piece of the cold meat pie in front of her. "I am not five any more, Maireth," she said, swallowing and frowning at the older woman, who had half-way disappeared into a clothes chest. "You do not need to threaten me over a little thing like eating."

"Ah, but it seems I do, little bird, when you do not eat and refuse to sleep and run yourself ragged chasing after the world's problems. When you stop doing all of those things, then I will stop treating you like a child. Until then, or until you give me a baby of your own to chase, I am afraid you are quite trapped with me. Now," Maireth planted her feet and stared down the younger woman. "You are not leaving this room until you have cleared that plate. The Gardens at the Houses can wait at least for that, or you'll be in their care yourself."

_She is right_, you know, that annoyingly pragmatic side of her mind said. _Empty stomachs never worked as well as full ones._

"Has Faeldes said where she will meet me?" Rhoswen asked, focusing on getting a little more information out of Maireth if she had to spend the time here eating instead of rushing off to help plant seedlings.

"It was thought you might do a little work in your own garden today, but Master Arthion left word this morning that if you wanted for employment today they would be glad of your help with the transplanting, as you asked to do. You have not missed much," Maireth counted a rising complaint before it was voiced. "It was but an hour ago, and the sun has a ways to go yet before it is too hot to safely do more. He said his daughters would be there, if you would like to meet them."

"I should like that very much," Rhoswen said, taking another bite of cold pie and mentally rummaging through her wardrobe, trying to remember where her gardening dress had gone.

Late or not, she received a warm welcome in the Houses of Healing that morning, work-smock in hand and hair tied back to begin what promised to be a long day of plantings. _Long, but honest,_ Rhoswen thought to herself, smiling as she dug her fingers into the still-cool dirt and felt it bunch into the creases of her palms as she prepared a hole for the first of the little seedlings in her planting basket. She had missed this in Dol Amroth. It had been winter, true enough, but she had not started her own seedlings as she would have done here, and though Lottie loved to dirty a dress with some adventure or another, gardening was not really something she would go out of her way to do. Another young woman came to join her at the same bed, out of the way from the other gardeners, and set down her tray with a huff. Looking up, Rhoswen could see she was not more than sixteen, and had that look common to all girls who have been asked to do something they don't like.

"A long morning so far?" Rhoswen asked sympathetically, catching the girl's attention through the silence.

"I've told my father a dozen times I'd much rather be inside with the healers, not out in the sun," the girl said sullenly. "Or better still, not here at all."

"Well, we shall have to find some better way to pass the time," Rhoswen said with a smile. "Planting alone and in silence is no fun at all for a girl to spend her days. Will you not work with me for a little? I would be glad of the company, at least."

The girl's frown did not go far, but she at least sat down again, toying with one of the leaves on a planting in her basket but making no move to get her hands dirty. "I don't think I know you," she said, studying Rhoswen's face as the older woman dug her hands into the ground again. "You have a coastal accent. Are you new here?"

_Anonymity – what a blessing._ "I recently returned to the city," Rhoswen said, bending the truth a little. "I was visiting my cousin out in Dol Amroth for a while, at the Court of Prince Imrahil." _A little truth, a little falsehood. Let us see what she makes of that. _

"Dol Amroth! Is it really as wonderful there as people say? With the parties and the Courts of Love and all that?" the girl asked, a sudden change from the sullen creature she had been earlier. "I heard the Lady Lothiriel is lovely."

"She is, very lovely," Rhoswen said, forgetting for a moment that in this girl's eyes, she was merely another healer with her hands full of dirt. "Her house is full of songs."

"I wish our house were full of songs," the girl said with disappointment in her voice. "Or the King's house, at least. Was the Lady Rhoswen there while you were there?"

"She was," Rhoswen said with a benign smile, reaching for another plant and expertly picking off a few scraggly leaves before setting it into the next hole and patting the earth down around it. "Though I did not see her much," she added for the benefit of the story.

"She's just come back to the city, too," the girl informed her. "My father the Warden went to see her yesterday. He said she was very much changed from when she was here before, but I don't know if that's true." _Ah, so this is one of Arthion's daughters! I knew I recognized the face! So he thinks I have changed. Well, that is not so bad as some._

" I've never met her," the girl went on, "But I've heard she's a bit of a bore. At least, she seems that way. She's got a troubadour-guardsman who's absolutely the handsomest man in Gondor and head-over-heels in love with her and she doesn't care at all for him! His name's Iorlas – have you met him?"

Rhoswen, who was taking all this in with a generous measure of good humor and amusement, could only nod, wondering what Lottie would think of this girl-child's assessment of Iorlas and his disposition towards her. "I've heard one or two of his songs, I think. They were very popular in Dol Amroth. "

"Do you have a favorite? I like 'Who Wished to Hunt' the best. I think it'd be romantic to have a song written about you," the girl opined, the sullen attitude of ten minutes prior almost gone.

"I think it might be a good deal of bother, too," Rhoswen said, totally truthful for a moment. "And not all men can write love songs, either."

"If I were the Lady Rhoswen I'd be after Iorlas in a heartbeat. He's so much more interesting than the Lord Boromir."

"I'm sure the Lord Boromir has many fine qualities that Master Iorlas does not," Rhoswen said fairly, prickling a little bit inside at the slight to her beloved. "He is the Steward's son, after all. Would not a great deal of money and power be preferable to a life lived with a penniless troubadour?" _That is not why I am marrying him, but let us see what she makes of that._

"I suppose," the girl said, considering. "But he's so much older than she is! He's practically ancient." She dragged the last word out as though it were the decrepit Denethor that Rhoswen were marrying, and not his virile elder son, and Rhoswen had to smile again, remembering how far off forty seemed when she was only sixteen years old. Not that nearly four years made a great deal of difference, but still.

"How quick the young are! Perhaps there's something to be said for marrying an older man," she proposed fairly, sitting back on her heels and turning to look at her companion for a moment. "My betrothed is a little older, but it seems no great difference to me. My family chose him for me because they thought he could provide well for me, because they knew he would keep me safe."

"Your family chose him for you? That must have been awful. Not romantic at all." the girl declared, suddenly sympathetic again to the plight of a fellow-sufferer in the world of womanhood.

Rhoswen had to shrug. "Not much romance at all, to be fair, but not awful, either, though I am sure I thought so at the beginning. We found we could love each other after we met, and I think we shall do all right in time. We may not have any grand songs, but we will have each other, and love between us, and I think that will suffice."

"When are you getting married?"

"When he returns home," the White Rose said, digging down for another planting. "He is away now on a long journey, though, and I do not know when that return shall be."

"What's he like? Do you miss him terribly?"

"I do," Rhoswen said, truthful to the core. "I miss him every day. As for what he is like…" She sat back again and pondered for a moment, imagining Boromir as she remembered him best – in his traveling clothes, riding away from Osgiliath alone. She liked the image - but not the story it told. "He is tall, and fair-haired, with a beard that makes him look very distinguished." She glanced at her young friend and saw her frowning. "And it is not so bad to be kissed by a man with a beard as you suppose, before you ask," she teased, making the girl blush. "He has a broad chest and strong hands with a little bit of callus, just here, from his sword," she gestured across her own palm, grimy with an hour's dirt. "And his eyes – his eyes are blue, and they make me feel as though standing with him I am in the safest place in the world."

Rhoswen suddenly felt girlishly young again, thinking of Boromir in the love-sick terms of a girl in her adolescence. How often she had played that game with the other girls of the castle and the village, talking of the boys they liked, and what made them desireable. She did not remember the particulars of those dreamed-up men of long ago, but she did remember they were not much like Boromir in her mind's eye. Lottie had played the same game sometimes, with her younger companions, but Lottie was very much kin to this young woman – caught up in the idea of great songs and stories.

"Is there someone you like?" she asked her companion, and the young woman thought for a moment. "Some young lord you wish would catch your eye?"

"I think Lord Erun's very handsome," the girl said fairly, and Rhoswen had to laugh, nodding.

"There are a great many women who would agree with you on that score. He was well-talked of in Dol Amroth. But is there no one of your own acquaintance, not one of the guardsmen or…" she cast her hand towards the main body of the Houses, where several of the apprentice healers, tall, gangly youths just coming into the flower of their adolescence, were working with their teacher, "One of the young men of this house?"

The younger woman ducked her head as if she was ashamed and shook her head. Her glance flickered towards a sound outside in the courtyard, and Rhoswen watched with a little bit of amusement as the younger girl tried quickly to look busy. But it was not quick enough for the voice in the courtyard, which approached their patch of garden with quick and angry steps.

"Thariel, I brought you here to be useful, not spend your morning idling and keeping others from their work! " Arthion called angrily from outside the garden, coming in to curtail his daughter's tongue looking every inch the displeased father. He turned to leave and saw Rhoswen, and his face turned apologetic. "Lady, a thousand apologies. I did not know you were working here. I would have sent her elsewhere if I had known. She has some very wild opinions sometimes, and an overeager tongue to spread them," he added with a dark look at his daughter. Thariel, for her part, had been red in anger at being found by her father, but that color was fading quickly as she realized that Arthion had addressed her new friend as 'Lady', and there was only one person in the city he could mean.

"And I have heard a great many of them in the past half-hour," Rhoswen said, rising to her feet and brushing her dress off, "I was glad for the company. Though I think you may have frightened the girl a little overmuch, Master Arthion. She did not know to whom she spoke," she said kindly.

Thariel looked totally bewildered, and her father scowled, a look that Rhoswen thought the world did not see very often. "Oh, Thariel, what have you been speaking of?"

"Nothing harmful, Master Arthion," Rhoswen cut in, before Thariel, shame-faced and secretive, was forced to say anything in her own condemnation. "We talked of young men, and betrothals, and the songs of Dol Amroth. Nothing terrible. As I said, I was glad for the company." She said all of this lightly, before Thariel had a chance to respond beyond a frightened peep, her gaze shifting between her father and the woman she now knew to be the Lady Rhoswen. "I would be gladder still if Thariel were allowed to stay here for a little while. I will make sure she makes herself useful," she added, exchanging a knowing grin with Arthion's still terrified daughter.

"If she is not, you will send her straight back to the nursery. Where it seems she belongs still," Arthion said solidly, giving his daughter one last glare before turning on his heel and returning to the rest of the Houses. Thariel did not seem to know what to do with herself, and remained standing in the stone archway that served as an entryway to this garden.

"Lady, if I had known..." she finally said quietly, her voice shaking.

"It is a lesson learned, Thariel, and one I hope you will not forget. It is better to think before speaking – and to know your table companions when you do. But I was glad for the honesty," Rhoswen admitted. "It was refreshing. Though I cannot think what Boromir would say to being thought 'ancient'," she said with a smile. It did not seem to reassure Thariel, but she said nothing. "Now, let us get these plants in the ground before your father comes back and browbeats us both!" She picked up the basket of plants Thariel had forgotten earlier and moved to another planting bed, an island that the two of them could work on across from each other in. Arthion's daughter knelt down tentatively, digging into the dirt much slower than Rhoswen did, still processing all that had just happened.

"I am sorry I called you a bore." Thariel said a few moments later, still obviously very much in the throes of shame. Rhoswen had to chuckle at that one.

"That is one apology I will accept, though I suppose next to Lottie I do seem rather boring," the older woman admitted.

"Lady…Lothiriel?" Thariel asked, wondering aloud who 'Lottie' could be.

"Yes, Lothiriel. Lottie is the name her family calls her by. And she is very lovely – I was telling the truth about that. She is very much like you – very strongly opinionated. And she thinks Boromir is rather too old for me, too, but she also knows that he is very much in love with me, and that has made it a little better for her. And she made me confront Iorlas about his songs," she added, in the way that all girls have of conveying secrets they deem to be of great value to their listeners. "You see, I did not like him at first, and I had to be convinced of the value of a troubadour and his wares."

"You didn't like his songs?" Thariel asked, amazed. Rhoswen shook her head.

"Perhaps when you are older, Thariel, and the world is better known to you, you would understand my reasons. It is enough to say I had them – and they are gone now." _Yes, I trust him and his reasons now. He loves my betrothed just as much as he loves me – and he would not betray his captain. A man who sets so much by a courtier's code could not do that._

Both sets of eyes turned towards the doorway to their little patch of garden as the gravel crunched a little ways away, taking in the sight of a man in a plain gray tunic overwhelmed by a bright blue and heavily embroidered cloak, obscured ever so slightly by the bulky package strapped over his shoulder, round at the bottom and tapering to an elongated point.

"Lady, I have been looking all over the city for you," Iorlas announced, bowing slightly. "You are a hard woman to find when Maireth has her way. I have news about the carters and the roads, if you will hear it."

"Faithful Iorlas! We were just speaking of you. Save it for later, or Maireth will have your head and mine. I was told not to think on affairs of state today, and I mean to follow her directions exactly. Now, sit down and sing a song for my friend here. This is one of Arthion's daughters, Thariel, and she says she is a great admirer of your works."

It was a little put-on, this hospitable merriment of Rhoswen's, but it did no great harm – Iorlas for his own part noticed it, and swept a bow for her that would have impressed the most practiced of courtiers, settling himself down on a bench nearby to take his lute out of its carrying case and tune it for a moment. "And what song would you have me play, fair lady," he asked, just as much a charmer as when he had performed in Dol Amroth for the adoring sighs and smiles and perfumed handkerchiefs of Lothiriel's coterie. The young woman laughed nervously and shrugged.

"You will have to forgive her, Iorlas, she did exactly the same thing you did when we first met and said a few things she later regretted," Rhoswen explained. "And I think she is a bit star-struck by you and your zealous charm." Iorlas dropped a fair bit of his 'zealous charm' and nodded knowledgably at Thariel.

"She is terribly clever at hiding herself when she chooses. Did you ask her to come to your bed later?" he asked baldly. "Because that is exactly what I did, and she still tolerates me. Whatever you have said cannot be much worse."

That, at least, got Thariel to laugh and loosen up a little, and Iorlas leaned back on the bench, still plucking his lute strings experimentally.

"For our new friend Thariel, then… a new song! One you will have to share with your friends, if you like it," Iorlas decided. "I just composed this last week, while we were on the road home. We had stopped for water, and the Lord Erun had picked a flower from the side of the road and put it in his sister's hair, and she looked radient. And the song came to me." He gave another experimental chord and then began.

"Springtime is in my mistress' face. Springtime is in my mistress' face!  
And summer in her eyes, her eyes! And summer in her eyes, her eyes, her eyes!  
Within her bosom – within her bosom autumn's changes.  
But in her heart, but in her heart, her heart are winter's rages."

He finished with a flourish and smiled while Rhoswen clapped politely, smiling a little to herself as she reflectd on the song.

"But that seems so cruel!" Thariel exclaimed. Rhoswen glanced at Iorlas with an interested smile and then back at Thariel, eyebrow raised inquisitively. "That the woman you love doesn't love you back!" Thariel exclaimed. "Her heart is as cold as winter storms! Are you sure you couldn't love him?" she asked Rhoswen sincerely. "It would make a good song! Better even than marrying the son of the Steward!"

"Cruel? Would it not be crueler to abandon the affection of an absent lover?" Rhoswen asked. That silenced Thariel as she found she had not considered that possibility at all. "In the tale of Beren and Luthien, does not Luthien remain true to her love for Beren even when her father forbade her to see him? Does not Amroth delay his parting from Middle Earth so that he could once more find Nimrodel, and throw himself into the sea rather than parting with the land where she might be buried? Is constancy not also something a poet may sing about?"

Thariel looked sufficiently cowed by all this evidence, and she nodded, awed, it seemed, by Rhoswen's ready knowledge of the old elvish romances.

"These are all good questions," Iorlas said as Rhoswen returned to her replanting, evidently trying harder than Rhoswen to capitalize on the teaching moment he saw in play, "And well worth the asking, little Thariel. These are the sorts of things which we discuss at the Courts of Love. You have not chosen your first opponent very well, though – the Lady Rhoswen was the victor in Arguments at the last convocation of the courts, and she had especially good teachers in Dol Amroth."

"But I thought that was you!" Thariel said, looking from her poetic idol to the woman who was quickly becoming far more than the daughter of Arthion could have imagined previously.

"I merely finished what he started," Rhoswen said humbly, smiling to herself at the compliment Iorlas had given her. No one said anything, and Rhoswen suddenly found the silence stifling. Noticing that nearly all the plants in both her tray and Thariel's were gone, she rose, dusting the front of her dress where she had been kneeling in the dirt, and walked quickly off to procure some more. Thariel's growing awe of her was frightening her, a little. But Iorlas would talk her down. Had not he done the same thing when they had first met?

_Steady yourself, or you'll begin to think like Serawen does_, some little cautious corner of her mind whispered. _You are a woman like any other, and Thariel is a girl trying to find her way in the world with what knowledge she's been given_. _Which seems to be all songs and stories from her friends, if this time with her has been any judge._

When she returned, new seedlings tucked under her arm in a long, low basket, Iorlas and Thariel were again deep in conversation, and Rhoswen paused for a while at the doorway to the garden to listen – it seemed they were still discussing her.

"But how does she know so much? It's like she sees what you're about to say before you say it. My mother does that, but she's ages older than her."

"She listens," Iorlas said wisely. "A trait all young women would do well to cultivate at an earlier age, I think. And young men, too, for it would make us wiser in the ways of the world. Yoneval taught me that."

"Yoneval taught you? The Yoneval? The greatest troubadour in Belfalas?"

"Certainly. Everything I know about song and story I learned from him. Did your friends not tell you that? I thought it was quite common knowledge."

"Well, they told me, but I didn't think it was…well...true. Sometimes when we tell each other stories we…add things in. To make it more interesting. They wouldn't be very interesting stories otherwise."

"I take it, little Thariel, that you do not like helping your father here?" Iorlas' voice was calm and without a hint of judgement in it - he was obviously trying to get a better feeling for the young woman as well.

"It's always very dull in the Houses," Thariel said. "Nothing interesting ever happens here. Except today, of course." She paused, and then said, tentatively, "So, the Lady Rhoswen _does_ know a great deal about songs and stories and the Courts of Love, doesn't she?"

"Indeed she does – far more than me, though she will not say it. And she is a good teacher, if you would listen to her."

"Then why does she come here? Why does she not stay in her rooms and compose songs? Other ladies do that!"

"Other ladies do not need to know the workings of an entire city," Iorlas countered. "And the Lady Rhoswen does not like to be idle. Usefulness is always her intention – she argues in the courts because it helps her learn the nature of the law. She plants in your father's garden because it helps her learn the nature of our wars."

"It does?" Thariel sounded shocked.

"What better way to know how a battle fares than by how many wounded lie within these walls? How better to know the morale of the soldiers than by listening to them when they are at their weakest and most vulnerable, and unable to fight back?"

"I never thought of that."

"You would do well to stay a little while here with her, then," Iorlas suggested.

"Are you leaving?" Thariel asked, with the voice of a girl hoping for more from a man she admires. Rhoswen bit back another bemused smile.

"Where my lady commands me, I must go, and I have business of hers to attend to."

"What sort of business?"

Iorlas must have smiled at her interest – there was a brighter note in her voice, and his, as he answered. "I gather intelligence for her in places she cannot hear. And you might do the same, and learn by it," he added. There was a pause – Thariel was obviously thinking. "Where might you go where the Lady Rhoswen cannot?" he asked innocently, without any lead in his voice that she could follow.

" Oh!" Thariel realized. "The kitchens, and houses of the widows on my street, and the market places, and –"

"Now you see the usefulness of many friends," Iorlas said, interrupting her trail of thought, the gravel crunching under his feet as he rose to leave. "Perhaps I will see you again here, little Thariel, and we will sing a song together."

"Oh, Iorlas, are you leaving?" Rhoswen asked, as though she had only just come up to the doorway as her troubadour passed through it. Iorlas, beyond the reach of Thariel's eyes, seemed to realize what his mistress had been doing, and his smile widened.

"Indeed, Lady," he said, playing his part very well. "But I think Thariel will stay a little. I will give my report later, then, after the evening meal, if Maireth will let me pass."

"I will see to it that she does," Rhoswen said, continuing into the garden as Iorlas made his bow and departed. "Did you talk to Iorlas, then?" she asked, as if she had not heard most of the conversation. Thariel nodded quickly, busying herself with the new seedlings to give her hands something to do and, Rhoswen suspected, to avoid looking at the woman she and Iorlas had been discussing. "He is a most interesting man, Master Iorlas," she continued, digging another hole for one of her own seedlings. "Would you like to meet him again?"

"Oh, yes please!" Thariel said excitedly. Then, remembering she was nearly a young woman, and of course supposed to be disinterested in anything according to some strange, unwritten rule, she rearranged her face and nodded, slowly and seriously, "Of course, if he would come back, I would only listen a little."

"Of course," Rhoswen said with mock seriousness, smoothing out the ground around her latest planting. "You know, I think this is my favorite season," she said suddenly, smiling as a cloud rolled away and the sun came out again, turning the ground suddenly warm again. "Everything is new, and growing, and green. Every plant that failed last year is gone, and every seed that did not sprout gets a second chance." She smiled at Thariel. "Will your father need you here tomorrow?"

"He has not said, my lady. It is likely there will be something for me to do. He likes us to be busy."

"Your sister as well? Remind me of her name."

"Thangwen, my lady. She is but fourteen – two years younger than me."

"I will begin the spring cleaning of the King's House in the next days," Rhoswen said, as if she were only now thinking this through and realizing she could not accomplish what she wished to on her own. "It has been neglected for far too long, and I have need of quick hands and high spirits, if your father will let you come and help me. Your sister, too, if she would like such a thing. And perhaps there will be a little singing, to pass the time, and a little storytelling at the end of the day."

Thariel's face lit up. "I would like that very much, Lady!

"Good. I shall ask your father before leaving."

* * *

It was a soft night, and the moon was high and full, reflecting down on the river beside the bank where the Fellowship was passing the night. Boromir watched the moon's reflection ripple and bend in the river's current, his mind far away from the joint of meat between his fingers, the remains of his dinner. It had only been a matter of days since they had left Lothlorien, but it seemed like years for all the distance they had traveled. Boromir had forgotten what life on the road was like while they were in the Golden Wood, with its beds and sheets and softly perfumed breezes, and the feeling of safety and comfort at every turn. There was no safety or comfort here, of that he was very certain.

He had not realized how heavily the Ring had weighed upon him until he was in Lorien, and the Ring's magic could not touch him – a heavy weight seemed to have been lifted from his shoulders while he was in the Lady's domains, though the Lady herself gave him cares to think on besides. Now that they were beyond her powers, the old shadows had returned, and Boromir found himself glancing at Frodo in odd moments, wondering how troublesome it would be to simply take the ring.

And it was becoming harder and harder for him to find himself again when the sudden malice receeded.

Rhoswen, too, did not answer him as she had of old when he turned to memories to sustain him. Her voice was becoming faint, and her face was fading, replaced too often by a nightmarish version of herself that Boromir did not know and could never be consoled by.

He was beginning to see that something weighed upon the rest of the company, too – only Rinnelaisse and Aragorn did not show it. But they were old campaigners, well-accustomed to being far from the comforts of home for years on end. For the hobbits especially, Lothlorien and its many delights had reminded them all what it felt like to sleep soundly, and it was an experience that made them doubt even more the road that they were now on.

"Pippin, you look troubled," Boromir observed, joining the young hobbit on his log overlooking the river. Usually the youngest member of the fellowship was the first to sit near the fire and the last to leave, but there was something different about tonight. He had picked at his food – very unlike a hobbit – and had soon abandoned the cheery expanse of the fire's glow for a view of the river.

"It all looks so dark out there," the hobbit said helplessly. "There should be stars. Something friendly."

Boromir nodded. "It is often thus in Ithilien, when the Mountain of Doom sends out smoke. It will soon pass. This is friendly ground – Gondor as it was in the days of old."

Pippin looked at the larger man and smiled. "We are finally in Gondor?"

The Captain-Heir laughed. "No, not quite yet in Gondor as it is now. Long ago, all this belonged to the Kings of Gondor – but they gave it away to their allies, the Rohirrim, and to the Horse Lords it belongs still, though they seldom come this far north. But once, all that lay between the Argonauth and the southern reaches of the Anduin was Gondor. And may be so again, for all I know. No, Pippin, here is where our road gets easier," Boromir said reassuringly. "From here, we go past the Falls of Rauros, down to Cair Andros, and then to Osgiliath, the great fortress of the Kings of Old, and there we will be in my country."

"Will we see your home?" Pippin asked. "I should like to see someone's home again, regardless of where it is. I've been gone from mine so long I've forgotten what a home feels like."

He said this with such sincerity that Boromir had to laugh, though he quieted himself soon enough. "That is for Aragorn to decide," he said deferentially, glancing over to the fire, where the Ranger had just turned back to the flames, obviously having just been watching them. "For my part, I am going back to Minas Tirith."

"You would leave us?" Pippin wondered aloud in that manner common to children who think it is personally their fault for a person's actions.

"There is a woman there that I miss dearly," Boromir said with a wistful smile, refusing to remember the other part of his reasoning. "And I would see her face again before I go into Mordor and the mouths of hell."

"Is she your sweetheart?" the hobbit inquired.

It was Boromir's turn to laugh again. "She is a deal more than that, Master Peregrin, though her heart, without a doubt, is sweet. No," he continued, smiling to himself, "She is my wife." _Have we not had a year since our engagement was read? Married in all but ceremony, and that only for the celebration of it in the eyes of the people._ "And I have kept her waiting too long in Gondor for my liking," He added.

Pippin nodded in a moment of masculine solidarity. "There's a girl at home that I like," he volunteered. "Well, actually, there's a few, but this one's special. I never thought about it before, but when Sam talks about Rosie, about…marrying her," (he said this phrase as though it were a different language to him) "I think about Diamond, and I wonder if she'd have me. Though I don't know why," he added with bemusement.

"You'll know it soon enough. No need to rush these things. When you are in Minas Tirith, you must meet my wife. You will like her, I think. She is goodness itself," Boromir said quietly, remembering so many things that made it true. "And I work every day to deserve her."

They dwelt on this for a few moments, watching the slow, inky blackness of the Anduin before them, and finally Pippin, the day's seriousness spent, returned to the fire for a chance at more sausages. His companion remained at the river, wondering where Rhoswen was and what she might be doing. Galadriel had said that time passed quickly in her country, and it was so – the land around them showed small signs of spring. Rhoswen might be planting her garden now, or she might be in the houses preparing tonics for the changing spring weather, or cleaning the house while the weather changed. Boromir couldn't remember a good housecleaning since …since his mother died. He recalled being a boy of eight, rooms thrown open and carpets out on walls being beaten free of dirt, floors scrubbed clean, all in the space of week. But after that…the memories were hazy, but the spring after his mother died there had been no large cleaning – just one room at a time, no one very busy as they had been when Finduilas had been alive to oversee it. Boromir thought of his own room and cringed a little at the thought of Rhoswen scrubbing floors. But surely she would get someone else to do that, as his mother had done. _No, you fool, she __would__ scrub floors with the maids. She is too proud to refuse to work with the rest. It is what you love about her._

"Yes, it is," Boromir whispered aloud.

"So you will leave us in Ithilien?" Aragorn asked suddenly from behind Boromir's log, startling the Gondorian for a moment.

"That is my intent, if I have not told you yet of it," Boromir admitted. It was a solution he had been thinking on for some time, but he had not spoken of it aloud until just now. "I have done all my pledge holds me to do, and it binds me no further."

"You would leave us where you could do the most good," Aragorn accused quietly. "This is your country, and its paths are well known to you."

"I would rather we all went back to Minas Tirith," Boromir said, trying to moderate his voice so those by the fire would not hear. "But you will not have that, so I will go alone."

"Every hour we travel gives him time to find us," Aragorn reminded, his eyes glittering, "And every day spent traveling away from Mordor is another day after when we do not have strength to outrun him!"

"Then why not go to Minas Tirith and recover our strength a little before going on?" Boromir asked, feeling a fire of his own burning in his eyes. "Surely there is no foolishness in asking that!"

"Even you know the peril of Minas Tirith for one such as the ringbearer," Aragorn threatened. "But your selfishness will not allow you to say it." He scowled and turned away without another word, tracing his steps back to the fire and going beyond the circle of light to stand watch near the rocks upriver. Rinnelaisse called out to him in Elvish, but he did not seem to hear her, and she turned back to the fire, glancing at Gimli and the others in a sort of helpless way. Boromir turned back to his own view of the river, nearly white-hot with rage. Selfish, him? Had he not just said he would not demand that the whole company go to Minas Tirith with him? _That_ would be selfish! But it would just be him. And what good could he do the company, anyway? Strength of arms would not avail them at the gates of the Morilrannon, or the towers of Minas Morgul! Was that not what he had said at the Council of Elrond? Had he not already told them of this?

_But it would give them hope, to know that you were there_, the conscience-Rhoswen reminded. _You, who are always the first to the breach and the most tireless in the storm. Stay with them a little while. Have you so little faith in me, that you think I cannot wait for you?_

Boromir's shoulders sagged, and he glanced down the shore to Aragorn, sitting on his own still. It was too late to mend the rift now. _It was not for me alone that I would leave_, he thought to himself, his eyes glancing over to the fire, where Frodo and the others were just starting to crawl into their bedrolls, Rinnelaisse staying to tend the fire. _But I cannot speak of __**that**__ to you._ _Too well do I know now the truth of what the White Lady threatened. And Pippin is not the only one who fears the nights without stars._

The night was too dark – and too cold. Boromir shivered a moment and then headed for the fire, pulling his pack away from the others to sleep with his back to the cliff, content for the moment merely to dream of home, if that would keep the other demons at bay.

* * *

Rhoswen had woken from the oddest dream, not remembering what it was or who it could have been about, only that she felt a certain cold dread upon her when she opened her eyes.

It might have been the body's shock of waking in a strange place, but she very much doubted that. She had passed the night in the Houses of Healing, tending the newly sick until one of the senior healers ordered her to bed. There had been a fever for the last few weeks in the city, building a clamor as more and more people fell ill. Some people, reading the growing clouds in the east as an omen, said it was the hand of the Enemy readying them for the killing blow, but Rhoswen blamed the slow trickle of refugees from the very outer provinces of Gondor, coming back to Minas Tirith as a place of refuge as their villages were set upon by Southrons and Corsairs. Little lodging could be found for them, and the press upon the city and its resources – for food, for water, for beds and blankets – was becoming evident. Though it was well springtime, the Houses of Healing were also seeing cases of serious damage done by cold in the dozens of refugees sleeping without adequate protection against the night-wind of the city. And then, of course, there was the fever, which seemed to sweep down on young and old alike, weak and strong.

War was coming – that much could not be denied by anyone, not even a merry party of girls intent on learning more songs and stories at the feet of their liege lady. But for the moment, she would put all of that aside, and play the gentle Lady, and forget that it was becoming less ordinary to see the sun still shine here. _We will pretend we live in happier times_, Rhoswen reminded herself, _when our menfolk are here to protect us, and not far away adventuring. Or better still, that we do not need their protection at all._

"Well, come along, little bird, your audience is waiting for you," Maireth chided, ushering her mistress in through their private door as the voices of more than a few young women giggled and sang in the solar beyond. "What was so urgent Master Arthion could not let you home an hour sooner?"

"He bid me leave two hours ago," Rhoswen corrected. " I would not go. His own healers are overworked enough as it is – the fever has taken up quarters in every level of the city, and their ranks are stretched thin enough without accounting for the wounded that lie in the houses and those in need of care in Osgiliath. He has pulled healers home from the troops to help, but it is not enough."

"Then cancel the Court for today," Maireth brindled, listening to the young women in the solar chatter. "You needn't run yourself ragged entertaining."

"If I postpone the Court," Rhoswen said, her face flushing as she hurried out of her healer's gown and into a more elaborately embroidered court dress, "they will know something is wrong. I do not need a riot, Maireth, on top of a sick city. And you know how girls can be when they hear of calamity. No house in the city would be safe from rumors." _Though what the rumors are already, I am sure I will hear from them_, she thought to herself, scrubbing her skin down with a thin mix of soap and rosemary leaves to wash the smell of the sickroom away.

"Your skin is hot," Maireth observed with the backs of her fingers, reaching up to touch Rhoswen's flushed neck as she helped her mistress lace the back of her gown. Rhoswen looked over her shoulder and frowned.

"I am not sick, Maireth," she said resolutely, smoothing her dress and then sitting down to work on her hair, still braided back so it would not interfere with her work in the houses. "I ran home when someone told me the time – it made me warm. That's all – it will pass." She glanced at her reflection in her mirror and saw Maireth still glowering behind her. Rhoswen pretended not to notice. "Is there water in the solar? I find myself a little thirsty."

Maireth continued scowling but set off to make sure her mistress had water, and food as well – whatever her maidservant might think she did eat while she was at the houses, though it had been a little later than they might have liked.

The door to the solar opened, and a young woman peered around the edge of the door. "Maireth, has Rhoswen – Oh! Thank heavens you're here. The girls are a little restless today. I did all I could think to entertain them in the meanwhile," Merethel reported. "How does it look in the Houses?" she asked, her voice a little quieter as she watched her friend put the final finishing touches on her jewelery.

"Not much better," Rhoswen said seriously. "But they are in good hands. They have enough tonic for a while yet, I saw to that before I left this morning. And it will be cooler today, they have said."

"You might have sent Bergil back with a message and called the Court off today, you know. They would have understood," Merethel suggested lightly. Rhoswen shook her head.

"There are few pleasures for a woman in the City these days – I couldn't deny them one of them, Merry. See how happy they look?" She opened the door a fraction to look on the large room fairly filled with young ladies laughing and talking. "They have forgotten their brothers and fathers are gone for a while and are simply being girls. And aren't you enjoying yourself a little, too?" she asked, looking at the younger woman with a searching glance. Merethel smiled in concession and followed Rhoswen into the solar, clapping her hands for attention.

"Ladies, ladies, our good leader has returned! And with a new topic for the court this week!"

"All the way from Dol Amroth," Rhoswen added, holding up the letter she'd recived from Lothiriel with its distinctive blue seal. "She is anxious to meet you, applauds your keen judgement in coming here to learn, and leaves you – this question." She pulled out the appropriate slip of parchment, hastily jotted down by Lottie in a cramped hand. "A woman has three men vying for her hand, and on a given day in court they are conversing amongst themselves whom she likes best. When she comes into their midst, she clasps hands with one, kisses the cheek of the second, and to the third gives only a piercing glance. Which, among the three, does she favor more?"

There was silence as the women contemplated, and then four or five girls began talking at the same time until Merethel took them in hand and began the more formalized debate, leaving Rhoswen, as chief arbiter, to simply sit back and watch the arguments take place, observing the girls.

They had come a ways since the last time they had met, a few of Thariel's friends and neighbors coming for the privilege of sitting with the Lady Rhoswen. So much talking had gone on about the Courts of Love that it seemed only natural for Rhoswen to invite them back with the promise of a real court. This, of course, was hardly like what had happened in Dol Amroth all those weeks ago, but it was entertaining for the girls, and for Rhoswen, too.

These were not the high-born of Minas Tirith who had attended her begrudgingly in her first days here as Boromir's betrothed. Those daughters of rank and fortune had already quitted the city long since under the auspices of well-meaning fathers who could read the meaning of the clouds and act upon them. but for those of less circumstance and no castles in the out-country to retreat to, little choice remained but to stay in the city. And these were their daughters, prosperous merchants, guildmasters, minor houses and court functionaries who wanted to curry a little more favor with the next Lady of the City.

Those in support of the kiss being the highest favor given seemed to be gaining ground – poems were cited, examples from older sisters' lives called in as evidence. Some girls, she was pleased to see, were more content to listen to the speeches of their friends before calling forth their own evidence – a goodly trait in law and love.

"Lady Rhoswen," Thariel said suddenly, quieting the group a little, "You are smiling as if you already know the answer, and know that it is not the one we have agreed upon."

Rhoswen sat up a little straighter, surprised that Thariel would notice such a thing. But she had been smiling at the answer she would have chosen, the answer none of them had even discussed at length. "Ladies, if you saw a friend of yours kiss one man and clasp another, you would perhaps form some pointed opinions about her relationship with both," she said, unable to hide her smiles any longer. "But you have not considered that perhaps the lady does not wish to make her love known, and that is the deepest kind possible, the kind that may kill. It may be that she has already favored this man far above hand-clasps and kisses, but does not wish to invite the opinions of others on the matter. I contend, therefore, that the man that she favors the most is the one she will not touch under the eyes of others – the man to whom she gives the piercing glance."

The girls seemed a little taken aback at this – a possibility they had not considered. "But I know a little of Lady Lothiriel, and I know the man she loves, she loves in secret," Rhoswen added with a smile and a little shrug.

There was a knowing gasp from some of the girls, some of whom now clamored for details of the Lady Lothiriel and her own secret lover, but it would have to wait for another time – there was a business-like knocking on the door, and Maireth navigated through the chairs and cushions to answer it, opening the door to one of the Lord Denethor's servants, a severe looking man clad all in black and wearing the badge of the clerk, a cloakpin of crossed writing pens.

"Lady Rhoswen, Lord Denethor bids you attend him in the hall," the clerk said blandly, a man schooled to show no emotion in the bearing of his messages to and fro.

"I was not aware the Lord Denethor was hearing petitions today," Rhoswen said steadily, slowly rising from her seat. Her head suddenly felt heavy, and she realized she had never had that drink of water that she had asked Maireth for earlier. Her maidservant must have not wanted to interrupt the debate.

"He is not, Lady. The Lord Faramir is returned from Ithilien."

Faramir! He had not been home in months, had not seen Rhoswen since she had left for Dol Amroth! And he was home now! But there was something strange about this homecoming.

"Why does the Lord Denethor ask me to attend him? Surely the lord Faramir's reports can have little to do with me."

She could feel the eyes of the room upon her, every girl watching her liege lady for some clue as to how she should act one day when summoned before her soveriegn.

"I do not know, Lady. I was bidden only to tell you to come."

"Very well then. I will attend him in a moment. Ladies," she said, turning back to her company, all seated in quiet amazement. "We shall have to finish this another time." The White Rose followed, wondering what sort of news or business would bring Faramir back from Ithilien at such a time. Reports came every day that there were new peoples marching to the east on the errands of the Dark Lord, and there were weekly skirmishes in Ithilien. What was so dire, that it would have made Faramir – Faramir, of all people – leave his post to come bring news to a father who despised him as a coward. But still – it would be good to see him. Her head was throbbing – Merethel would know to send the girls home. It would be good for them to think further on the same question for their next meeting, and Rhoswen could get some rest.

The Hall of Kings was very nearly silent - strangely so. Two figures stood out against the white marble of the room's walls, one seated in the jet black throne of the Steward, the other standing before it, his shoulders curved in defeat.

Evidently Faramir had been holding something back from his father; when she arrived, the younger son of Denethor glanced in her direction with something that looked like fear and cut himself short. And as he turned towards her, she could see that his eyes were red-rimmed, and he was holding something, an object Rhoswen knew all too well.

Boromir's horn was in Faramir's hands, and as Rhoswen took a step closer, not believing what she saw, it revealed itself to be broken, cloven in two as if by a sword or some other act of rage. But it was not so much the horn as it was Faramir's face – miserable and full of fear, waiting to tell her the story the horn silently told. Rhoswen felt the world begin to spin. The smell of blood and marrow filled her nose, and suddenly the floor came up to meet her, jarring against the side of her head.

"Send for Lord Erun, Maireth, her groomsman! She is weak, take her upstairs!" Faramir's face swam before hers, cradling her head and caressing the side that had hit the floor. "Rhoswen, can you stand?" In the background she could finally hear Denethor sobbing, but it could not be true, Faramir had not said anything, the horn could mean anything. And yet Faramir's face…

"Come now, sister, up you go," Erun was saying, shifting her into his arms and carrying her out of the room. She felt frozen, unable to move, weighed down by this terrible, unspeakable burden. People were rushing past her, Maireth was shouting something, doors were opening and closing, all of these going on around her as if she were in some kind of waking dream, terrible to the touch but real, for all she wished it not to be. Finally Erun laid her down on her bed.

"Gods above, she is burning!" "Raise that fire up and send to the kitchen for some warm wine."

Warm? She did not feel warm, rather, her face felt cold and wet. Why could she not see?

"Shall I send to Master Arthion for a posset? Does she need to sleep?"

Sleep? No, she did not want to sleep! Boromir was dead! She wanted to die! Anything to get him back! Anything to wash off this emptiness she now felt. It was her fault – he would not have gone if she had done something differently, if she had given herself to him that night and begged him not to go he would not have left her here like this. He would be home, he would be safe, she would have beautiful babies to play with and love and nothing in the world would be wrong. The emptiness flared out, her heart expanding into one greater, vast void, space that she should have filled with him, with her children and grandchildren and all the things which would now never be. The voices were still spinning around her, Maireth's stronger than the rest, telling everyone to get out, leave the lady to her rest, but she could still hear Denethor's cries ringing in her ears.

Her mind was stumbling now, as if she had fallen out of herself. She was spinning and sailing through a rainbow maze of color, falling deeper and deeper away from the light until there was nothing but darkness and cold delirium.


	26. Chapter 26

Come to me in the silence of the night;

Come in the speaking silence of a dream;

Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright

As sunlight on a stream;

Come back in tears,

O memory, hope, love of finished years.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live

My very life again tho' cold in death:

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give

Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:

Speak low, lean low,

As long ago, my love, how long ago.

_-The Echo, Christina Rossetti_

* * *

Like a rock in a river, she tumbled and turned, the fever painting strange scenes in her mind's eye. Voices faded in and out, and her eyelids were heavier than iron gates, never wanting to open. Wild fires and dancing shadows were her bedfellows inside and out.

Until finally, it all faded back, and she found herself in a familiar place, under familiar trees.

It was the same light and the same wood as when she dreamed, in Dol Amroth, of finding Boromir in the skin of a bear – colder now, as if some joy had left it, or some great doom had been decided. It was empty, as it had been before, but she heard no voices, or songs.

"Renneth's daughter, what are you seeking?" a voice asked, intangible as a mist.

"I do not know," Rhoswen said, casting her gaze about for the source of the sound.

"But I do," the voice threatened. "You are seeking _**death**_." The word echoed and carried like a wind, and the leaves from the forest floor shivered and rose around her. Rhoswen's skin grew cold. Out of this wind a woman appeared, appearing shrouded in the rags and tatters of a centuries-old corpse. Then she was the same as she had been before in Rhoswen's dream, peerless in living flesh, bright as the stars in the heavens. "And it is not your time to find it yet."

"Who are you?" Rhoswen asked, begged, even.

"I am the walker in dreams," the bright lady said mysteriously, and a smile curled around her face. "I am the Adamant, and the Obdurate, the Lady of Light and the Dark Mistress."

"And what do you want with me?"

"To show you the way out of your darkness. The times are coming indeed when the shadow of death will be reckoned bright in comparison with the lamp of the living. It need not be so! For they have traveled far seeking an end to the darkness, and farther still they must go before they find such an end. Your time is not now!"

"Lady, the man I love is dead," Rhoswen cried. "What would you have me be, if not sad?"

The lady looked straight at her, and Rhoswen felt a great power seize her heart. She could not look away. "Is he truly so? Have you seen a corpse, dressed a body, shrouded and buried him?"

The words, as she spoke them, called up such images, such sounds! She was in the tomb, and the corpse was cold beneath her hands, and they would have her cover his beautiful blue eyes! The feeling of finality, of the last great end, overwhelmed her, filling her heart with fear and making her entire body as cold as the corpse beside her, and just as still. She could not move to shake the fear away - It was all Rhoswen could do to mouth a single "No!" _And why should that matter?_ Her heart cried despairingly. _A sign is a sign. All the omens that have been read say ill news comes regarding Boromir._

The lady smiled, and the sight turned Rhoswen cold with anger. "What do you want of me?" she asked again, desperately angry, finding her voice again. The lady's smile was maddening, as if she knew something Rhoswen did not, but would not share it with a mere mortal. She smiled still wider, raising her hand as if to brush a hair from Rhoswen's face, and in her fingers was a light like a star. Her voice was faint and far away, yet clear as a ringing bell.

"Hope."

Her finger touched Rhoswen's temple, and for a moment, the light blinded her, sending her spinning through a storm's eye.

She awoke with a start, back in her bedchamber, alone. The room was dark – it was many hours away from dawn yet, it seemed. Rhoswen sat up, feeling the sheets of her bed heavy with feverish sweat. _How long have I been asleep?_

At her bedside there were all the tools of a healer's trade – flasks and alembics, mortars and cloths and sponging pans. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could make out more figures in her room – Erun sat across from her bed, slouched uncomfortably into a chair, and Maireth, not far off, her own bed abandoned for a pallet near Rhoswen's side. All of them were fast asleep. _Have I been ill, that they watch over me?_

She heard voices in the corridor whispering, and without thinking laid back down, closing her eyes as if still asleep. Two maids came in, wood and tools clinking in their hands. It was later than she thought.

"Ought we to light the fires in here, Rian?"

"Master Healer Arthion had that fire going night and day for three solid days until her fever broke last night. Does she need it? If I were fevered, I think I might have had well enough with fire already."

"But she's sick, still, surely," the other, younger woman said. "And you don't leave them that's sick in the cold. Better we do it."

The older woman grumbled, but went about her work. Rhoswen could hear the ashes being scraped out of the hearth, and being dumped into a waiting bucket.

"She looks peaceful now, than what she was before, thrashing and moaning," the younger one said. Rhoswen willed her face not to move.

"Aye, she's a pretty little thing. I can see why the master's son took such a shine to her when he's never before. Give me a hand with this, will you?"

The younger voice was apparently busy for a moment before she spoke again. "Do you think she'll leave, now that he's dead?"

The older woman harrumphed. "I would!" she said stoutly. "Nothing for me now, now would there be? She's not got family here, and it's not her home, not really. If I had someone to go with me, I'd be gone quicker than anything – and there's more that would join me, too. It's a fool's errand to stay here, with Mordor breathing hot fire and brimstone down our faces. If she or any other went, I'd follow and follow gladly. Now hurry up with those logs, we don't need them waking now."

"I still think she's awfully brave," the younger woman said wistfully. Rhoswen's heart twisted in her chest as she listened to the women go, and she laid in bed a while after they were gone, thinking.

Perhaps the woman in her dream was right – perhaps she had tried to die, and not recover from her illness. Perhaps that was her body's way of acceding to the mind's desires. But to die was a coward's way, surely, and she was no coward. Lothiriel had said it, and Iviriniel, and Boromir, too, in his own way. She could not be a coward now – not when so many people watched her for their example. She would stay – stay and face that coming dark. That was what Boromir would do, and in his absence, that was what she would do. _Until my lord release me, or __**honorable**__ death take me, _she decided in the darkness.

Rhoswen relaxed back against the pillows, closing her eyes and slipping back into a dreamless sleep without even meaning to. When she awoke again, the room was brighter, the sun just illuminating the world beyond the drawn drapes. Maireth was up and about, moving about the room and tiding a little – moving a cloth towards a basket of similiarly sodden rags, placing a half-filled beaker on a tray to go back to the kitchens. In the morning light, the room had the feel of a battlefield after the fighting has stopped, and both sides are ready to claim their dead.

"Maireth," Rhoswen tried to say her maidservant's name, but it came out in a half-rasp nowhere close to human speech. It was enough, however, to get Maireth to turn towards the bed, her face softening into a smile as she moved towards the bed, abandoning her cleaning to knee by her mistress' bedside.

"We were not sure if you would come back to us, sweeting," her nursemaid said weakly, smiling and stroking Rhoswen's face. "There are a great many people who were frightened for you," she added, a silent tear streaming down her face.

"How long…" Rhoswen tried to speak again, but only the half voice came through her throat again. Maireth picked up a clay cup from the myriad on the table and filled it with water from the pitcher at Rhoswen's bedside. The liquid cool running down Rhoswen's throat, and she drained the cup dry twice and filled it again before she was able to speak. "How long have I been asleep?" she asked, her voice still creaky with disuse, looking around and getting a better sense of the room's chaos. Maireth smiled bleakly.

"The better part of three days, lovely. Faramir – " she began to say something and obviously thought the better of it, but that would not do for Rhoswen.

"What about Faramir, Maireth?" she asked quickly, remembering his face, so full of grief for his brother and sadness that he, of all people, should have to tell her about it. And now this! What must Faramir think of himself? _He will tell himself he is the cause of the illness, but that could not be further from the truth._

"He wanted to stay," Maireth said gently. "He could not bear the sight of you as you were. He wanted to know that you were safe, that you were through the worst of it. But he was needed in Osgiliath. He went with a heart heavier than it should have been," she added.

"And B…" She could not even bring herself to say the name. The dread calm of her early morning reverie had deserted her. Perhaps it had all just been a dream. Maireth wrapped her hand around Rhoswen's.

"Yes, sweeting. He is dead."

Rhoswen closed her eyes to bite back a tear. "And we know not how," she added, the tears fresh in her eyes again.

"Faramir reported that he heard the horn blowing in the North, some days before it came down the river. But what Boromir would have been doing there we have had no sign." Maireth wrapped her arms around Rhoswen, quietly sobbing again. "It would take a great blow to break the horn," Maireth offered quietly. "He died as he would have wished to – in battle."

Rhoswen nodded silently, trying to master her feelings. It was a tidal flood and not a thread of tears that threatened to escape her, but she would not let it master her again. "In the time of songs we will sing of him," she said tearfully, nodding, to herself now, and trying to wipe away her tears. "And in the time of mourning we will mourn for him. But this is neither, and we should be working. Maireth, my robe, please."

"Indeed not!" Maireth said, some of her bluster back. "You have been abed with a fever to rival the fires of Morgoth's forge, and you will not stir from it that easily! Not until Master Arthion has seen you – and then you shall not leave this room until he is convinced of your recovery!"

"But I must have work, Maireth, or I shall go mad!" Rhoswen cried desperately, and in her anguish to be heard Erun finally woke up, falling over, more or less, in the chair where he had been sitting and catching himself before his head made contact with the table. It was enough to make Rhoswen laugh miserably, though to the others it may not have sounded like laughter, but it made Erun rush to his sister's bedside, ignoring all the prohibitions of the sickroom and clasping her close.

"He would not have forgiven me for letting you leave us," Erun whispered in his sister's ear. "It was just like – but that does not matter, little sister, you are here now, and that is all that matters. That is all that matters." She could not see his face, but she knew he was crying; indeed, as he pulled away from her she caught a brief glimpse of him brushing something from his eye. "Do not frighten me so again!" He admonished, shaking her shoulders and smiling weakly at her.

"I will try not to, brother," Rhoswen returned. "Where is Arthion? I must thank him, too."

"I have called for him," Maireth said from nearby the doorway. "He went home when you finally slept soundly and we thought the worst of it had passed, but he will want to see you, too."

She began drawing the drapes back and propping open the windows, letting some light into the room and allowing the stale air of the sickroom to escape. Rhoswen sat up in bed, carefully watched by Erun, waiting for Arthion to pronounce her fit to return to work. Several times she sat up to ask for something – a book, a piece of sewing, a box of thread to sort – and Maireth denied her, making her charge wait patiently for the Master Warden of the Houses to arrive.

"I must say, I do not think I have known a sickroom with so many diligent watchers," Arthion said as he came inside, shutting the door firmly behind him and leaving whoever was in the hall locked out. "I told the young men at the door I would let them in when I had finished with you. Young master Bergil looked ready to run me through, but he stood down when his uncle stilled him. You have a doughty little champion out there when you need him, Lady."

"Oh, poor Bergil. He has not been there since –"

"He left to go to his lessons," Maireth reported, somewhat severely, "but he came straight back afterwards. You are nearly a mother to him; I thought he might sleep outside so he might know what became of you."

They stopped talking so Arthion could complete his inspection, feeling for the temperature of her skin and inspecting the whites of her eyes, listening to the rhythm of her heart and the condition of her breathing. Convinced the danger of the fever had passed, the Warden packed up his bag and smiled.

"Your people will be glad to know you are among the living again, Lady. My daughters, in particular, will certainly be glad to know I have not killed you, as they seemed to think that was the case when I arrived home the other day."

"Tell them, from me, they should be easier on their father," Rhoswen said with a smile. "Can you not convince Maireth to let me have some occupation, Arthion?"

Arthion considered this, glancing at the doughty face of the former nursemaid with trepidation. "Heavy work, I think, is beyond your capabilities. But I would like to keep a close eye on you, Lady, if you can stand the trip to the Houses, and I think we might find some light work for you there, preparing bandages and measuring herbs for the sick. I think some sunshine, too, might be of use to you, if Maireth thinks you can stand it."

It never became a question of Maireth's standing it, for Rhoswen never let him ask her maidservant. They bundled her up and packed her off to the houses before the day was out, and it was not too long before her room there was filled with gifts from her well-wishers. Her little court of love sent what amounted to a small garden's worth of flowers – she knew not how their mothers' gardens must have looked afterwards – and all the special preparations, broths and delicacies that the kitchens could prepare found their way onto her dinner trays.

Safely installed in her chair near the window of her room, Rhoswen looked out onto the grassy expanse outside her window. She could see flower gardens easily from here if she but looked far enough – if she turned her chair, the other view was not so serene. That way across the lawn was the path to the soldier's ward, reserved in peacetime for those most serious of wounds. It was at present very empty, save for a few recovering wounded from the taking of Osgiliath and a scattering of broken limbs and smashed thumbs from garrison duty accidents. They were farthest into the room, where Rhoswen (or any other passerby,) could not see them.

But what the eyes do not see the heart still grieves over_. I promised Boromir I would look after them_, Rhoswen thought to herself, gazing down the green lawn towards the deceptively empty ward_. And what have I done for them since he left? Planted a few flowers and little else._

It was the last thing she had promised him – that she would take care of Minas Tirith while he was gone, and she had not done anything towards it. Rhoswen's eyes began to fill with tears again, remembering her betrothed at Osgiliath, standing astride a tower, sword raised, ready to conquer anything to return to her.

Some men said he had used her name as a battle cry there in the broken streets of the City of Stars, and once, when he seemed close to exhaustion, the dying scream of a young soldier, his voice scarcely broken and sounding so much like a woman, brought him to his feet with strength redoubled, pressing back into the throng of Orcs to reach the young man's side and drag his body behind their lines.

Never again would he take her in his arms and spin her around in the sun – never again might she see him undress for bed, cautiously shy as she lay beneath the sheets, feeling terribly vulnerable until he became just as unarmored as she, sleeping in his shirt and little else, the fire casting strange shadows through his body linen.

She should have let him hold her then! Perhaps, if she had...

"There, there," someone was saying. A woman's voice, calm and older. Ioreth's voice, Rhoswen remembered now. "This is not heaven, however much we want it to be. It's the world, and there's troubles in it. All men must die – and all women too. You'll go on. It'll hurt, but you'll go on."

Rhoswen smiled damply and tried to wipe her face quickly, but Ioreth stopped her. "I've buried a husband and two sons, Lady – best cry now and have out with it. Tears won't bring them back, and there's an end to it. Best remember the living rather than the dead."

"But how, Ioreth? How do you forget?"

"Oh, you never forget, Lady. You remember them every day, but…differently. You remember they can no longer suffer. And that should be a consolation of some kind in these darkening days. No, cry now, and when you've done with that, you drink this tonic down." Ioreth set something down on the table and shuffled quietly out. Rhoswen could distantly hear her talking to someone, as if turning them away, but she could not make out if she had been successful.

She let the tears curtain her eyes, slowed her sobs, breathed a little easier, wiped her face, tried to slow her throbbing heart. She did not know that she had more company until she felt two small, boyish arms wrap themselves around her side in an awkward embrace.

"I'm sorry," Bergil whispered, and the tears started up in Rhoswen's eyes afresh.

"Oh, Bergil!" Rhoswen cried, opening her arms up and drawing the eight-year old closer to her. "It is not your fault! But thank you." She sniffled again, wiping her eyes against the back of her hand, and then realized that her littlest champion was crying. "Bergil, what is wrong?" she asked, trying to wipe her eyes again as she sat back in her chair, well aware that her face must have been as red as anything.

"I wanted him to come home so you would be happy again!" the little boy wailed, more like a child of five than eight. Rhoswen felt herself start crying again and embraced him tightly.

"I think I can be happy without Boromir, Bergil. I think I _must_ be happy without Boromir." Oh, what a pain was in her heart then, what a wall of tears was pressing on her!

"But it's not fair! It should be like in the stories Uncle Iorlas tells – he should come home and you should be Princess in the castle and live happily forever!"

Rhoswen smiled and nearly choked on a sob that met the hint of a laugh on its way up. "It is very good of you to be angry on my account, Bergil. But I do not think being angry will bring him back. I am not certain that is the way the world works. We have cried for him – now we must be strong for him. Boromir would not have us sit about all day and cry. We must be useful. We must be helpful. People will need us."

Bergil swallowed and nodded, wiping his face hastily, but Rhoswen stopped him. "It is not shameful to cry, Bergil. You loved him very much, and crying for him is a sign of respect. Any person who cannot openly cry for the dead did not truly love them."

"I w…will go ask Arthion what help he needs here," Bergil said solidly, as if reassuring himself before setting out what his mission was. So intent of purpose was he that he did not notice his uncle in the corridor outside of Rhoswen's room, though to be fair, Rhoswen had not noticed him either until Bergil had passed him.

Another, less observant woman might have lashed out at the poet, asked him if he'd come to gloat over the grave of his rival, woo a grieving wife, and Rhoswen was close to unleashing her own stream of invective at him before she realized that his face, too, was red with crying, and, unusually for him, he did not carry his lute, a near constant companion.

"They would not fault you if you stayed in grief," Iorlas said softly, watching Rhoswen's face with the sage expression of someone observing a cloud formation, trying to gage if it would rain. "You have cause to do so."

"Denethor will do enough of that for the both of us," Rhoswen said bitterly, drying her face for what she hoped was the last time. "It is his way to dwell on things he cannot change. At least someone of the steward's house should be seen to take action. Faramir is too far-flung for that, so it must be me. It is my duty, as my lord's wife."

The words brought her a little comfort, if they also almost made her start crying again and she pressed the ring he would have given her against her skin, heavy on its chain under her gown, both stone and metal smooth and cold. Iorlas nodded.

"Your brother the Lord Erun sits in council with the Steward; when they have finished I will bring him here."

Rhoswen nodded, watching Iorlas go as silently as he had come. Ioreth had left a cup of something warm on her bedside table – it had cooled considerably, but Rhoswen drank the lukewarm dregs down and tried not to pull too terrible a face.

Was this what her dream had spoken to her of? Sitting with her brother in an hours' time and talking of what they would do as the city went to war? Was this hope?

_If it is not hope, it is the only thing I can think of to do,_ Rhoswen reasoned to herself. But getting her brother to sit and plan with her would not be as easy as she had hoped. When Erun returned from attending a meeting of the Steward's council, he was in a foul mood, and in no fit state to sit still for anyone.

"Nothing!" He spat angrily, slumping down heavily onto a bench and then leaping out of it again to pace the garden where Rhoswen was working, trimming the dead leaves from the rapidly growing seedlings. "Denethor will do nothing to prepare. Saruman will not attack us, he says. Our preparations against Mordor will be enough. Osgiliath will be held. The defenses in Ithilien will be adequate. He will not order the city to be evacuated – he says that will cause undue panic. He will not even bring the townsfolk behind the walls of the city!" He turned on his heel and continued fuming. "And he did not even ask if you were well," He added heatedly, still irate.

"Erun – Erun!" Rhoswen caught her older brother on one of his turns and held him steady a moment, though it took all her strength to do so. "Be calm but one moment and tell me what happened in council. What is this news of Saruman? Has something happened in Isengard?" She suddenly felt very learned – all the maps she had been studying before her illness were resurfacing in her mind.

"Helm's Deep, the great fortress of Rohan, was attacked, by forces from Isengard and Saruman. We cannot dispute it – they bore his sigil, an open hand stamped in white. They were beaten back by King Théoden, but his forces are weak and he must have time to regroup. We are between the hammer and the anvil here – those coming to us from Rohan do not report whether Saruman's might is extinguished or not."

"So…if we sent to them for aid, Rohan may not answer us," Rhoswen riddled out. "We are alone." Erun nodded.

" If Théoden sent his people away from the capital at Edoras into the mountain fastnesses of old for shelter and safety, that decision alone must inform us that the threat from Isengard was great, and Saruman of old was always a friend to the Men of the Riddermark. Times have changed, and too quickly for our liking. And Denethor will not see this! More voices than mine encouraged that we empty the city and send the women and children along the length of the Gray Mountains to safety by the sea. There are fortresses there no arm could penetrate easily."

"I could not leave a city that I loved for the promise of a fortress in the mountains, Erun," Rhoswen said gently. "I have been there, and I have seen them, but the people of the city have not, and they would not trust your word alone. Denethor is their Steward – his word is law. And I am nearly his daughter. I could not leave him thus unless at the very edge of peril."

"People will never leave the city willingly," Iorlas said from the door. "Pardon the intrusion, but my lord's voice carries very well. If a man of the City may give his opinion, Minas Tirith is not Edoras. They will say we are defensible here," Iorlas countered, watching Erun's expression carefully. "The people will not go – they are like their lord in this regard. What Rhoswen says is true."

"Against stones and arrows and the strength of Sauron's arm, perhaps we are defensible," Erun said. "But against that?" He pointed out the window to the shadowy cloud massing in the east, swirling its long tendrils around a locus they could not see but could only imagine – a great eye, lidded in flame. "Against that we have no defense. Oh, they will say that we have beaten the armies of the enemy back before, but he has devices we have yet to dream of at his command. Because that is more than a cloud that creeps towards us – that is a curtain in front of an unknown strength. It is fear, and panic, and chaos in our streets, and against that we are defenseless. For that, the city must empty."

"But they will not go!" Iorlas countered angrily.

"Would they follow someone?" Rhoswen spoke up suddenly. "Would they follow me?"

"But you have already said -"

"Only you and Iorlas heard me," Rhoswen reminded quickly. "Outside this room no one knows my mind. What if I told you that I would leave? The women of the city know me, and they know my grief, and they know my illness. They have lost fathers, husbands, and sons. It would not be so different from the autumn, when I left for Dol Amroth." She looked at the two men, her eyes bright, their eyes dull in confusion. "Put it about that I am heart sore, that I will leave the city to escape my grief – the grief that nearly killed me. Say that I will take anyone with me that chooses to go – to the Lebannin, or further down the mountains, what you will. I will have an escort, and armed guards, and the people will be safe, and hopefully you will get your empty city."

"Rhoswen, you have been ill! This is folly!" Erun objected. Rhoswen's eyes sparkled, her expression nearly gleeful.

"Ah, but I have not finished…"

* * *

There was a sadness over the Tower of Guard. Families locked their doors, not knowing if they would return, while artisans and artificers checked and double checked their workshops, wondering if they would need this tool or that on the road ahead. They had taken carts, and pack animals, where they could be had, or, if they were not so well off, had simply packed their meager belongings into packs and shouldered them. Burdened and sad, they waited in the streets, watching for a sound, for a sign of her. A long line of humanity, waiting for its leader.

Finally from the seventh level came the sound of hoof beats, and the Lady and her entourage clattered past. The deep hood of her cloak was up, and she wore a dark veil to hide her weeping eyes, but they knew it was her – who else would wear such a distinctive cloak, a garment that the whole weaving district and the tailor's guild besides knew was a gift from the Lord Boromir, embroidered all about its edge with beautiful creamy white roses? And was that not the Lord Erun her brother who rode with her, and the guardsman Iorlas with his beautiful blue cloak that he had won in Dol Amroth?

They passed, and the guard who would accompany them passed with her. That was the sign – they were leaving now. Husbands kissed the doorposts they had raised and painted, wives wiped one more loose pebble away from their doorways, children looked around, wide-eyed, and tried to remember it all. Not all were going – some women would stay, or families with grandparents too old or ill to travel. It was not yet a dead city, but neither was it still a living one.

The long line of humanity passed slowly out of the gates, following the west-road to the Lebannin, and the hill country.

It was a long road until camp that evening. Footsore and heart sore, the people of Minas Tirith laid down their packs and camped gladly, lighting fires, beginning the evening meal. Tents were put up; the smell of meat and vegetables filled the air as some men, veterans of Ithilien who had not forgotten their bows, came back with game. The Lady Rhoswen kept to her guards, and her veil was up – as soon as her tent was erected, she fled inside, and would see no one. Mothers whose children had hoped to see the Lady assured their offspring that she was tired, just like they were and would perhaps like their flowers or the shared comfort of a well-worn doll early the next morning.

Inside the tent, the woman under the rose-heavy cloak threw off her veil and sighed to Erun as though she had been holding her breath in the entire ride here. "Did I do well?" Merethel asked, running her hands over her shoulders. "Rhoswen is so much taller than I am – I felt like was sitting up straight as an arrow all day just to pull it off. And that cloak is heavier than night!"

"You did very well," Erun reassured her. "But do not shout – we have two or three days still, until we reach where we are going. They will need to think she is here, if they are still to follow us. And I know you shall do even better tomorrow. So,_ sister_," he winked and gave a short bow, "I bid you good night." He paused for a moment, and then turned back to gently kiss Merethel's cheek. The younger woman smiled and blushed, watching him turn again and leave.

* * *

Maireth watched from the window as the last of the leavetakers disappeared on their way down the West road into the hills, the gates shut fast behind them. "They have gone," she said to the woman in the furthest corner room in the houses, a woman who had come in some days previously under heavy veils who did not speak, or even allow herself to be spoken to, passing her days in silence.

"Thank you, Maireth," Rhoswen said, looking up from the piece of embroidery she'd been laboring under during her long confinement in the House of Healing, hiding from the world as Merethel pretended to be her and lead the people of Minas Tirith far away into the hill country. Her stay here had satisfied her demands and her healers' – She would not travel, and the people would indeed leave the city to be defended. Once Merethel and those who had followed her were safely away, Rhoswen would no longer be Lady Rhoswen, betrothed of Lord Boromir and Lady of the City, but simply another healer in a gray dress, tending to the sick and wounded. It was a simple enough disguise for Rhoswen – others were having a little more trouble with it.

"Lady, a rider comes from the north," Arthion's daughter Thariel announced quickly, clapping her hand over her mouth when she realized what she had said. It was enough to make Rhoswen smile for a moment.

"Thariel, you must remember it is just Rhoswen now, or Healer, if you think you cannot remember that. Now, tell me more about the rider," she prompted.

"He was seen coming down from the northern reaches of Ithilien. His horse is white, and his raiment, too, and he carries something with him shaped like a child."

"Perhaps he brings news from Rohan," Rhoswen hoped aloud, setting aside her sewing and pausing for the briefest of moments before the mirror to inspect her reflection. "Perhaps this is one of Théoden's errand riders." _Though white seems an ill omen here. In Rohan that is the color of death._

* * *

I am having so much trouble picking the epigrams for the beginnings of these chapters - and I can't put the next chapter up until I've found just the right one. There are so many good poems to choose from. Well, Christina Rossetti makes another appearance here, and I hope she strikes the right mood.

I shall not apologize for the shameless state of my last chapter and its cliffhanger. It was a necessary evil, and one that I hope is working. Here at the end of this chapter I have left you in a much more certain state, though the meat of this chapter is somewhat lacking, for I think we all know which rider in white this will turn out to be. I hope the next chapter will come along soon, since Pippin and Gandalf are such fun to write, and Bergil gets to make his book canon entrance soon (although the sequence of events surrounding that meeting with Pippin will change considerably in this version.)

Thank you to the great many of you who have put this story on your watch list, or have left me reviews. I am sorry I have not gotten a chance to respond to all of them. Let me take a moment here to say that they are always appreciated and treasured.


	27. Chapter 27

Two women on the lone wet strand

(_The wind's out with a will to roam_)

The waves wage war on rocks and sand,

(_And a ship is long due home._)

The sea sprays in the women's eyes—

(_Hearts can writhe like the sea's wild foam_)

Lower descend the tempestuous skies,

(_For the wind's out with a will to roam._)

"O daughter, thine eyes be better than mine,"

(_The waves ascend high as yonder dome_)

"North or south is there never a sign?"

(_And a ship is long due home._)

-_The Watchers_, William Stanley Braithwaite

It had been a long and hard ride from Rohan, and Pippin had slept only fitfully. A fine match for Gandalf, who had completed the whole ride without blinking an eye. Pippin had worked very hard to make sure he said nothing to the wizard – the old, kindly, well-meaning Gandalf who had made Pippin wash plates and called him a fool of a Took had been replaced by this man who seemed more like a commanding general than a grandfather.

The landscape around them had changed wildly – slow sloping hills had grown up into mountains, and the wide expanses of grass had dissipated into stands of scrubby brush. It was not the Shire, by any stretch of the imagination, but neither was it Rohan.

"Yes, Pippin," Gandalf said suddenly, obviously sensing that Pippin was about to ask one of his ever-present questions. "We are passing into the realm of Gondor. Boromir's country."

At long last they came to the top of a tall rise, and looking out over the plain below Pippin saw a city, made of white stone, shining out of the edge of the mountains, one long pier of stone extending downward through all seven levels of the city like a vast ship's prow. There could be no mistake – this was the White City, the Minas Tirith that Boromir had always spoken of with reverence.

"The city of Kings," Gandalf said, almost proudly. "Though there have been no kings here in Gondor for an age. Do you see that house, Pippin, at the very pinnacle of the city? That is where our business lies today. That is the House of the King, but the man we will see there is not a king, only a steward. The Lord Denethor."

"Boromir's father," Pippin said, nodding.

"You will find no welcome in Gondor as you did in Rohan," Gandalf warned. "Théoden is a kindly old man, but Denethor is of another sort, proud and cold and cunning. Now is no time for ready answers, Pippin! You already have your instructions on this matter – I say this only as a reminder. Do not betray the oath you swore!"

Pippin nodded, remembering the grave faces of the men who had watched him ride away with Gandalf. He could not betray them now. The time for childish play and curiosity was over, and he needed to put it behind him. He was a messenger now, and his errand a simple one, a task wrapped inside a punishment. _If only I had not looked in the Palantir!_ The jet-black orb and its blood-red eye haunted him still.

Shadowfax carried them steadily up the hill, his stride unbreaking as they sped past surprised people in the street. Unlike Rohan, Pippin remembered Gandalf saying at some point in their long journey, horses were seldom seem in Minas Tirith, where the need for cavalry was small and people placed their trust in fortresses of stone rather than moving masses of men and beast. The only horses they were likely to see here were errand riders for their lord – and everyone knew that this man clad in white was not one of them.

Arriving at the top of the city, they came to a sudden grassy place, and the peak of the city opened up before them in a large courtyard, the House of the King looming beyond it. Before them, in the middle of the court, there was a tree, its trunk bleached white, its branches bare. Yet Pippin knew it. But before he could say anything to Gandalf, the wizard seemed to answer his question.

"There it stands - the white tree. You see now why we despaired of your vision. It is the sign of the whole city on which you now stand."

"But…" Pippin glanced up at the leafless branches as they passed by, his mind harkening back not to the leafy shades of Buckland or Fangorn, but the bleached bones of a dead fish that he had found on the banks of the Brandywine river as a child, preserved in clay just as the fish had died, a mockery of a living beast. "It's dead," he said finally, and for some reason, the words chilled him more than he could explain.

"It is the tree of the King," Gandalf explained. "And there has not been a king here for many, many generations. When the king comes again it shall once again flower – or so the stories say. Still they guard it, but it is a long time since they hoped for the return of the line of Elendil. They have forgotten what Gondor was like under the Sons of Anarion – and they treat the Sons of Hurin, their stewards, as other men treat kings." He turned before the foot of the steps leading to the doors and let the full power of his gaze beat down upon Pippin. "This house will not welcome the sons of Isildur as they should – let us bring no news of them. No news of Aragorn; do you understand, Pippin? He must yet prove himself to this house and those in it if he is to come here."

Pippin nodded, trying to remember all the things he was and was not supposed to say. Better if he were to be ordered to be silent – but then, he might make a shambles of that, too. _Oh, why could I not have stayed behind in Rohan? _He asked himself as the doors swung open of their own accord, letting forth a breath of almost cold air from the room within.

Gandalf was right – there was no welcome here as there had been in Rohan. Oh, true, in Rohan he had ridden in with a company of conquering heroes to a feast fit for kings and the victorious dead. But here in the King's Hall of Minas Tirith, there was no life, no servant stirring. Tall pillars of jet-black stone held up a roof several floors above them, covered in those high rafters by tracery in dull gold and graying white. The air was cold in here, and unmoving, the light from the high bay windows making the room bright, but lifeless. In between the pillars were figures of stone, the long-lost kings out of Gondorian legend, and Pippin felt, as he walked forward into the hall, that each of those stern, unmoving faces were silent judges, ready to pronounce punishment upon him as if they still stood in court here.

"Hail, Denethor, son of Ecthelion, Lord and Steward of Gondor. I come with tidings in this dark hour, and with council."

Pippin had not realized there had been anyone in the hall until he saw a figure move, in the tall black chair at the far end of the room – an old man, stoop-shouldered and robed in black.

"Council?" The figure spat back, raising his head to glare at the pair before his seat. "Is that what honeyed words and false promises are called in these dark times? Have you come to laugh at me in my grief? Have you come to tell me why my son lies dead?"

He lifted up an object from his lap, and as the light fell on it, Pippin could not help but gasp – it was the horn Boromir had carried with him, graven with many noble scenes – and it was cloven in two.

"I see you recognize it!" the man proclaimed. "Deny not that you know it, Gandalf, and who carried it! What use did you see in his death? For what worthless cause has Boromir's life been given?"

"Worthless were none of his causes," Gandalf said evenly, taken a little aback by the presence of the horn. "But Boromir would not have you abandon the defense of this city, even in your grief for him. I bring news from Rohan –

"Old news!" the steward barked. "We have heard of the siege of Helm's Deep here, and the breaking of Isengard. Théoden is a fool, but the Tower of Guard was not built by axe-throwing Northmen. It was built by the men of Númenor, who knew their craft better than the horse-lords in their dragon-headed halls. Mordor may come here – but Mordor cannot break our gates as easily as those of the Hornburg."

"The Gates of the Hornburg were not easily cracked," Gandalf countered, and Pippin could see, from months of experience, that Gandalf was losing his patience. "And those who broke them down were not Mordor's full strength – the strength that will now be thrown against your gates."

"Let them throw it!" Denethor cried. "We have strength enough to stand fast against a hundred such throws – and would have had more, were Boromir still here! This city should weep as I weep now -Her greatest defender is lost on a fool's errand!"

"No!" Pippin cried, and Denethor's face finally turned to see the small figure in Gandalf's shadow. "It… it was no fool's errand," he said shakily, a little frightened at his own boldness. For Denethor's eyes, now on him, terrified him to the core. Here indeed was a man as unlike Théoden as night was from day. His gray-eyed gaze was strong and unyielding, and Pippin felt, strangely enough, much as he had before the Palantir – as though all his skin had been flensed away and Denethor could see straight through to his heart, to his very soul. _How can I lie to him?_ He wondered in abject terror.

"So…a Halfling." The Steward's voice was cool and thoughtful.

"Not the one of whom the dream spoke," Gandalf said rigidly.

"And why was it not a fool's errand, my small friend?" Denethor asked, his eyes searching Pippin's gaze.

"To…to call it such would dishonor your son, my lord," Pippin said, trying not to tremble under the cold stare of the Steward. "He believed it well worth his efforts, and Boromir was not a fool."

"Indeed," the steward replied coldly. "But what made it such? What value did Boromir see in the mission? Many other tokens were given in that dream, and I see none of them here – the sword that was broken, and the doom near at hand, and Isildur's Bane. What among those was so precious that my son gave his life for it?"

"None of them," Pippin said quietly, his voice still trembling, his eyes falling to his feet. "He fought to save us – my kinsman and me. We were the youngest of the company, and young in the ways of war. He tutored us in our swords, shared his stories with us, gave ear to our complaints. Ever he was a friend to me." As he said this, something inside Pippin seemed to suddenly remember one of those old tales out of Gondor that Boromir had entertained them with when the fire was drawing low, tales of great knights and heroic battles, and everything that Pippin had seen so far in the city, its history and majesty and tradition, seemed to flood upon him. "I offer you my service in payment of this debt," He said suddenly, meeting the Steward's eyes for one brief stormy moment.

"Your service," Denethor repeated, considering the young hobbit before you. "Very well. Let this is my first command to you. How did you come to escape and my son did not, so mighty a man as he was?"

Pippin told his tale, at least as much as he was able to, given Gandalf's instructions, and Denethor listened intently, asking questions that Pippin should have tried harder not to answer. But hobbits are not built for guile, even ones so mischievous as Pippin, and Pippin hoped that Gandalf remembered that, for he felt that a great tide of impatience and anger had been rising in the wizard for the hour they had sat before the Steward.

And it seemed Denethor had not been the only audience to Pippin's story - in the shadows another figure lingered, a woman, clad not in black as the other servants of the Steward's house had been, but rather a dark gray, the color of a sky washed out by a gathering storm. Strong-willed she looked, but sad, and she did not linger long after Pippin's tale was complete, but fled rather, back into the King's House, all the while silent, save for the small sound of sorrow that had brought her to Pippin's attention when he was speaking of Amon Hen and the shooting of Boromir. Pippin was reminded for a moment of the Rivendell elves, though she was not so fair as any of that kindred, for her grief was not the general hopelessness of the city, but rather a private sorrow, as if she had lost and knew that it would affect many.

"What lady was that, in the corner?" Pippin asked as a servant lead them into the guest quarters of the King's House.

"Ah, so you saw her, too," Gandalf said. He was trying very hard, Pippin could see, not to let his anger best him; Denethor's parting words to them both had not been overkind. "Though she tried not to be noticed. That was the woman they call the White Rose of Gondor - the Lady Rhoswen, late of Anfalas along the coast."

"Boromir's wife!" Pippin exclaimed, remembering the name.

"No, not his wife - though he spoke of her as such," Gandalf clarified. "Merely his betrothed, a custom they still keep among the higher houses of men, though little good it does them to do it. A marriage of convenience, that was the intent of their trothplight, but it has convenienced no one, since Boromir was called away to take council with Elrond. That is her sorrow, Peregrin Took, to wait for a man she does not think will return and to watch the father he loved sink deeper into madness. Spend not the coin of your generosity too freely there, master hobbit," Gandalf counseled gravely, pulling the hobbit aside in the corridor and whispering to him. "If you should see her, and, indeed, the chances are good that you shall, tell her nothing of Boromir! Long she will ask, and great will be her persuasion. That hour is not yet at hand."

The wizard would say no more on that until they reached the room appointed to them, fairly appointed, with hangings on the walls to brighten them a little. It was sparsely furnished in the city's fashion, and not what Pippin, who came from the land of gifts unlooked for and a shortage of places to put them, was used to. Three high narrow windows looked down northward, over the edge of the Rammas Echor to the Anduin and the falls of Rauros, further up the river. Clambering onto the bench beneath the window, Pippin looked out to the river, remembering the story he had told that morning and wishing to think on it no more.

"Well, this should please you, Peregrin Took!" Gandalf said, pointing to a small table where a small repast was laid - an ewer, filled with ale, and a plate of fruit and buns, still giving off a little steam. A card was propped against the tankard set there for the ale, and Pippin walked over to read it. The hand it was written in was fine, but delicate, a woman's writing.

"'For tired travelers and hungry storytellers.' Well, that's me!" Pippin exclaimed, taking the topmost bun and biting into it with relish. The bread was just a little warm, and filling, a rich loaf of coarser flour than the white cakes Denethor had called for. "Plain honest food, that's what I wanted! This is working man's bread, and no mistake," the hobbit said, finishing the bun and reaching for an apple.

"You probably have the Lady to thank for that," Gandalf mused. "She is by all accounts the mistress of this house now, as there has not been in these halls since Denethor's wife died, and would see to things like meals for hungry soldiers in service to her lord."

"Well, I wouldn't go so far as to call it a meal," Pippin put in realistically. "But welcome, all the same."

"Ah, they have nothing like hobbit custom here in Gondor, Peregrin. The doors are seldom open and the smiles never so freely given as they are in Hobbiton, or Tuckborough. Hospitality has not always been the city's strongest virtue - it lightens my heart a little to know she has brought that small joy here."

"She reminded me of the elves, a little bit," Pippin added, between bites of his apple, which was soon gone the way of the bun.

"The elves?" Gandalf snorted. "Hers is only a human sorrow, and those are never great and easily mended, if men would approach them in the correct fashion. Though there is some elven blood in her house, far, far back in their line, as there is a strength of the blood of Westernesse in Denethor. He is not as other men of this age now are, and whatever his descent may be, the virtues of the Númenoreans are still strong in him. As they are in Faramir, his younger son. Perhaps that is why the father bears ill will towards him," the wizard mused. "They perceive keener than other hearts and minds, and can see a little of other men's thoughts - yes, even yours, Pippin - even when the men they observe seek not to show them. Boromir had no such gift."

There was a knocking at the door and Gandalf turned, hawkish, and barked "Come!" to the ill-favored fellow behind the door. Indeed, it was not a fellow at all, but a boy, scarcely nine years old, tall for his height, as children of the city were known to be, and clad in a sort of gray-blue tunic and hose, wearing the badge of the healers on his sleeve.

"Yes?" Gandalf asked, peering down at the boy from his own considerable height; Pippin remembered receiving many such stares, and suddenly felt a strange comradeship with this little errand-runner.

"Please, sir, I was asked to see if the food was to your liking," the boy said. Gandalf looked at Pippin, and the hobbit thought he could see a little of the old Gandalf's smile there.

"You shall have to ask my companion here, for I ate none of it. Well, master Peregrin? What were we saying of the city's hospitality?

"It was very good," Pippin said reassuringly. "Please…please send my thanks to where it came from."

"My la—"the boy stopped himself. "My mistress wonders if, after you have eaten, you will come and tell her the same story you have told the Lord Denethor."

"Is your mistress the Lady Rhoswen?" Gandalf asked searchingly, and the boy cowered a little bit.

"No one is supposed to know she is still here in the city," the boy said, pleading. "Please don't let her know I told you. I'm supposed to keep it a secret."

"Well, keep it safely, then! I have met the lady once before and knew her face – that is all. Give master Peregrin a moment, and he will go meet with your lady. Come now, Pippin, eat up – it appears you must tell your tale again, and you have just finished saying it is a hungry business."

Pippin glanced at the boy and then at Gandalf, snatching another roll from the plate and sighing as he considering the rest of the food. Who knew how long it would be before he could eat more? _Oh, come now, Peregrin, think of a higher cause than your stomach!_ Some nettling conscience inside him rattled fiercely, and Pippin forced himself to be content with the last roll, eating it quickly and following the boy out of their apartment.

"The Lady Rhoswen says that you are a great prince among your people," the boy began, after several experimental glances in Pippin's direction as he strode along the corridor. Pippin struggled to keep pace until he settled into a slow jog. "But I do not think I have ever met a prince shorter than me."

"Among my people I am considered very tall," Pippin said, remembering Merry with a twinge in his heart. "As for being a prince, I am not sure where the Lady Rhoswen heard that," he acknowledged, wondering that himself, "But my father is very powerful, and my family is well-respected, if that is anything the same."

"Will they come and fight for us, do you think? Rhoswen's brother the Lord Erun has sent out riders to call the out-companies in, and there is talk of lighting the beacons to summon the men of Rohan. My uncle Iorlas told me the story of the first smiting of Sauron, with the Elven armies and the men of the west. But I do not think the Elves will come to this battle."

"Even if you called them, my people would not come," Pippin said, hurrying along. "The Shire, where I am from, is a long, long way away. Nearly thirty years I have lived among my folk, and never until this journey had I seen a man carry a sword. And now I think I have seen too many of them."

The boy nodded sagely, continuing to walk at a tremendous pace until he realized that Pippin was nearly running to keep up with him, and then he slowed. "I am sorry!" He said with that kind of overanxious misery common to eight year old boys. "I am not usually bringing people back to my lady – only packages or messages, so it does not matter how fast I walk. I am Bergil, by the way – Bergil son of Beregond."

"I am Peregrin Took, son of Paladin Took," the hobbit said, "though in my country we would give you a good deal more of our family tree by way of introduction, if we thought you might be related. I think in this case we may leave it out."

"Where is your country?" the boy Bergil asked, beginning to walk at a slower pace so he might talk with his traveling companion. "Are you from the land of the Dwarves in the mountains of the North? They are still a little taller than you – sometimes they come here to trade."

"My home," Pippin began, trying as best as he could to remember, "is far, far north, between the mountains and the sea, but until leaving home, I was not aware that such things actually existed. I thought they were things made up to terrify young hobbits into eating their dinner. Hobbits are not particularly adventurous people, except, perhaps, for my family – we are known to have adventures, but none so big as the one I have been on."

Bergil nodded. "I thought once, when I was smaller, that I wanted to go on an adventure. That was before Lord Boromir left to go on his adventure to the Elves, and then Lady Rhoswen was sad. Now I do not think I would like to go anywhere. The people who get left behind always seem to get forgotten in stories of adventures. I hope they do not forget the Lady when they write his story. I am not sure they ever will though – people like stories with happy endings, and Lord Boromir and Lady Rhoswen is a sad story now."

He said this with such conviction and such great sorrow of his own that Pippin felt his heart sink a little, too – he was a part of this sad story, and Bergil had just reminded him that he would have to tell it again to the woman it mattered most to, the woman who had mattered most to Boromir. But he gained a temporary reprieve – far below in the city a great horn sounded, and Bergil, forgetting all protocol, rushed to the nearest window, looking out on the city below.

"Look," he cried, pointing to a great gate some stories beneath them, with a tiny black line outside it, waiting to come in, "The out-companies are here! Let us watch for them – Rhoswen will want to know who has come!"

Pippin, who had felt just a little queasy looking over that great precipice down the side of the city , was indeed glad when Bergil's plans did not involve a long walk all that ways down. His choice of perches was ideal for short-statured hobbits – a little window in the room above the doors to the city barracks, looking down at the troops as they rode or walked into the commandery of the Tower Guard. To Pippin, it seemed an insurmountable number of armed men, but he could see from Bergil's face that it was not as many as he would have liked.

"Why does your lady want to know about the Out-Companies?" Pippin asked as there was a pause in the long line of men, each one carrying a standard that identified them to Bergil. The commentary the little boy was keeping up was immense, and Pippin wanted a moment to let it all sink in.

"She promised the Lord Boromir she would look after the troops while he was away," Bergil said, turning his face away from the window for a moment. "It is her business to know everything that goes on in the city. I help her with it – and my uncle does, too. He is her guardsman, but he is a troubadour as well. When this battle is over, he will write the story down so people will remember it – he taught me all the standards and banners so it is easier to remember them. See, look, the golden ram! That is the sign of the Lady Rhoswen's country, the Anfalas! Those must be her brothers, and her father," he said, pointing to the knights who rode out in front of their own small company of men. "They do not fight many wars either, in Anfalas, except against the sea. Shepherds and fisher-folk hail from there – they will not bring many swords. And see, here behind them are the men of Pinnath Gelin – that is Hirluin their lord at their head. He is a good friend of Rhoswen's, and married to a great lady of the city just this past year. Rhoswen says they are expecting a child now. He is a great warrior – but he does not bring many men with him either," Bergil said, saddened as the green-clad men of Pinnath Gelin slowly trickled away as had all the other men before them.

There was a great pause here, and then the two watchers heard a sound unlike the trap of feet, and below them in the city they could hear a great roar of noise that followed it, a cheering unlike all the others that had gone before. It echoed through the stone streets and rose up into the window where Bergil and Peregrin watched, and both hobbit and boy leaned closer to the window to see what would cause such a riotous cheer from the people. It was Bergil, of course, who saw it first, and his gasp of delight was enough to make Pippin's heart rise a little too, before he saw for himself what gave the page-boy such joy.

"The knights of Dol Amroth!"

It was their helmets that he saw first – great cresting plumes of white swan feathers swaying regally above a troop of cavalry in shining white mail, each breast plate embellished beautifully with a white swan on a blue field. Each man was carrying a tall spear, with a long blue pennant attached to it, and these were waving merrily in the breeze as their horses passed by. They sat so tall on their mounts that each man had to dip his spear in order to pass under the archway into the Guard's commandery. The last line stood apart from the rest, their arms richer and the man at the center of their line wearing a helmet of a different make – a helm with a crown of whitenened metal picked out in little winking stones around his brow. Tall all the other knights had been, but this man seemed taller still, perhaps because of his great helm, or perhaps because of the way he carried himself on his horse. Pippin was at a loss to know.

"Now we will have some sense to command us," Bergil said happily. "That is the Prince Imrahil with his sons. He is Lord Boromir's uncle, and he is a man of great deeds. He comes from the Swan-city near the coast. My uncle Iorlas says it is the most beautiful city in Gondor, because it was built by elves, and there is elvish blood in the princes of the Swan."

After the infantry of Dol Amroth had passed by, Bergil climbed down from the window and brushed his tunic off for a moment.

"And now we shall go see the Lady," He said, as if to remind himself where they were bound. Pippin, who felt his stomach give a little gurgle, privately hoped that the Lady Rhoswen might be found in close proximity to a kitchen, though he doubted that a great lady would be so considerate. He knew, from his meeting with the Steward, that the family rooms of the House of Hurin were upwards in the city, so it surprised the hobbit to no end to find his guide once more taking him down a level, not to a room of state but to a place of magnificent gardens, and large dormitories, most of them empty. Bergil seemed to be well known here – everyone he passed greeted him by name, but none asked for Pippin's name, only bowing in what seemed to Pippin a rather courteous manner. Some of the great dormitories, Pippin could see, were filled with people, and it was not until they passed a place filled with bandaged and bloody soldiers that Pippin realized this was a place for healing the sick.

But it was not a sickroom that Bergil led him to, but – wonder of wonders! – a kitchen. The room was rather empty, designed to feed too many rather than too few, and large fireplaces lined the walls, most of them for the moment empty. The action of the room was concentrated to a single corner, where a group of perhaps twenty women was working furiously around three or four of the large fires, stirring pots of stew and checking bread ovens with long wooden paddles. Some of them looked up when they saw Bergil come in, but only one of them broke away from the group to greet them, a woman who had been chopping an enormous pile of vegetables. She was singing something as she worked, chopping out of rythmn with the song – something about an absent lover and a wind that was bringing her news. She seemed to be on the last verse, talking about dying alone and keening, and she sang with distraction, as though the song were on her mind but she did not remember she sang it. Pippin thought it very sad, but she did not have long to finish – she looked up at the sound of Bergil clearing his throat, and her face brightened after a moment, as though her mind needed to shelve one particular mood and put on another more appropriate for her audience.

"I thought you would not return to me, Bergil! I came down thinking to do some light work to pass the the time and I have chopped nearly all the vegetables they gave me! What kept you so long?"

"The Out-Companies have come in, La- Rhoswen," Bergil reported seriously, correcting himself before he could say 'lady', evidently a hard habit to break. "Hirluin is here, and Imrahil and the Swan knights, and your father and brothers."

"It is a shame I cannot go and see them all. But there is much work to be done here first – they will have traveled lightly, to have come all this way, and their rations cannot be very substantial. We will send food up to the commandery."

She had set to that work so quickly that Bergil and his other errand seemed to have been forgotten."And I have brought…" Bergil spoke up for a moment, and Rhoswen turned quickly, just in time to see Pippin step out from behind Bergil to see the lady better. The furious movement in her stilled, and she dropped her hands quickly to the table, her face going white.

"Yes," she said gently, her eyes fixed on Pippin. "I had forgotten about you."

"This is Peregrin son of Paladin," Bergil said by way of introduction, seeing his lady's abrupt change just as readily as Pippin had. "He journeyed with the Lord Boromir."

Rhoswen nodded, her lips tightly pressed together. But before he could make his bow, Pippin's stomach gave an almighty grumble, and Rhoswen forced a laugh, her face loosening a little as she put a smile on for her guest.

"I have not eaten my afternoon meal yet today either, Master Peregrin – will you not sit for a while and take a meal with me?"

She did not even wait for his answer, walking over to the cauldrons and scooping some stew into three newly washed bowls waiting on a side table, sliding three spoons into the pocket of her apron as she tried to balance the bowls in her arms. Bergil came quickly to her rescue, and Pippin could see that as he took two of the bowls from her her hands were shaking, splashing hot liquid on her hands. Rhoswen instead took charge of a large loaf of bread, and carrying their meal between them they went back out into the garden, Bergil leading the way to what must have been a favored spot, in between clusters of herbs with a view overlooking the city and the plain before it. A small table was set out there, and several chairs, a workspace out of doors intended to ease the mind. _Perhaps that is why she is here_, Pippin said, getting a closer look at the lady as she fished a rag from another pocket and wiped the table clean of a few stray leaves. _Perhaps her mind is troubled._

_Fool of a Took!_ The nettlesome part of his conscience cried again._ She has heard of the death of the man she loved! Of course she is troubled! Did not Gandalf say it was so?_

Boromir had always spoken of his lady as a woman of great beauty, and she was, in a way, beautiful, but it was a beauty in shadow now, veiled in care. She had the look of someone who has just overcome a great illness, with faint shadows under her eyes and a certain pale tint to already pale skin. Her hair was dark, and might have been worth comment if it had not been bound back in the manner of servants and domestics. Pippin thought her eyes might be gray, but then, she had not looked at him directly since her invitation in the kitchen. Indeed, she looked as though she were trying very hard not to look at him at all.

"Let us eat first, and then we shall talk," she decided, not even matching eyes him for a moment. Bergil exchanged an apologetic smile with his new friend and dug into his own soup, but Pippin, suddenly and somewhat miraculously, was no longer quite as hungry as he had been, watching the lady push vegetables around her bowl as a way to distract herself, eating only one or two pieces.

Bergil tried valiantly to rally his lady's spirits, talking in his animated childish way about the troops they had seen come in, and the other places he had been that day, repeating jokes from the guardsmen and curious happenings from the throughout the city. Rhoswen tried several times to smile, but it was a passing thing, a sun behind clouds, quickly seen and still quicker gone.

She seemed to settle after a little bit of food – her hands stopped shaking and a little color returned to her face. "Is the food to your liking?" she asked courteously, and Pippin, in a sudden flurry of surprise, shoveled in a few mouthfuls so he could nod and smile appropriately, a tactic he hadn't had to use since childhood when his mother had gotten a new cook who hadn't quite lived up to her reputation as the best in the county. The soup scalded his mouth, but it was quite tasty – a far cry from the sad broths and charred meats of the travel food they had been eating for the past months. He chewed and swallowed with a show of great relish, and gratefully took the bread she offered him, still a little warm from the oven but light to the tooth and deliciously filling.

"It was baked this past morning here in the Houses. I had not made bread since I was a child – yesterday's loaves were tough, though the matrons of the kitchen were kind enough not to say so. Today's is a little better, I think," Rhoswen said, as if trying to distract herself.

"You made these, my lady?" Pippin asked, surprised and a little confused that so elevated a lady should have worked flour and water with her own hands to make the sustenance before them.

"Where I was born we are not so rich that the lady of the household can afford to stand idly by while others feed her family, nor so proud that we would ever do so," Rhoswen said with another brief smile. "I do not like my hands to be without work. And there is work aplenty in the city now that many of the women have left for the hill-country," she added.

"We are not so poor in my country that we cannot afford praise for a meal so excellently made," Pippin added courteously. "Thank you, my lady, for your thoughtfulness earlier. It was well placed." He set down the rest of his bread and looked at her, some part of him that had lingered long in downtrodden places seeing the carefully hidden cares in her face. "I heard your song when you were in the kitchen. It was beautiful, and I …I thought you should know."

A slight smile sprang to Rhoswen's face. "Ever let it be said that the hobbits of the north are princely in their manner! I thank you for that. The sorrow I sang of was not mine to claim - it is an old song, and full of old grief. And I think there will be greater grief than that in the days to come." She sighed. "As for beauty, I am sure you have heard better. I sing well enough in places where music is made with mouth or flute, but where there are harpers in plenty, I am a poor talent. You must have heard grander songs in the places you have been."

Pippin thought about this for a moment, recalling many songs and many tales. "Yes, perhaps," He offered. "In Elrond's halls and in the woods of Lothlorien they know the skill of music, and can craft it well, and in Théoden's house they also have harpers. But it is one matter to sing of a thing and another matter to know it, and the knowing makes the song sweeter, in a way." He was about to say _"And you, my lady, have known sorrow,"_ but then thought the better of it, the words dying on his lips. Rhoswen seemed to have forgotten he was there, and was staring at the ivy on the wall, lost to her own thoughts. A tear glimmered in her eye, and Pippin knew she had been thinking the same words that he had not spoken.

"Perhaps that is what we fight for," she said distantly. "For beauty and songs, and the hope they bring. But we do not sing often enough in Gondor in these dark days. If there is still hope left here, it will blow no loud trumpets here, only weak whispers. They have not yet withdrawn from Osgiliath," she said hopefully, looking towards the east and the city near the river. "Perhaps they will yet push them back."

She gave one final glance over the parapet and then turned her gaze to Bergil and smiled wanely, her eyes dropping to her unfinished soup bowl. The boy quickly gathered up the bowls and left, obviously knowing that his mistress wished to be alone with her guest. Rhoswen drew in a ragged breath as if trying to still herself, and settled her hands into her lap, turning with great decision towards Pippin.

"I will not have you tell me of his death, Master Peregrin. You have told that story once already today, and it wounded you to tell it – that much was plain to me. The Lord Denethor is a taxing audience even for good news."

Pippin's heart ached – what a woman was this, who would see his grief in lying even while her own sorrow was heavy on her! It was all he could do not to spring from his chair and embrace her as she continued to speak.

"Tell me a little of your journey instead, of your companions and the places you have seen. You spoke of Lorien, and Meduseld. I want to know – " And here she drew another wavering breath, steadying herself again. "I want to know what sort of men he journeyed with, and d-" The word caught in her throat, and she closed her eyes a moment, collecting herself. "And _died_ for."

Pippin's throat was dry. _Remember to tell it as Gandalf said!_ "He died for me, Lady, and my kinsman, Merry. We were beset upon by orcs, being thought an easy target in the woods, and he threw himself between us and them, begging us to run. He slew a great number of them to let us get away. He was a great friend to us, teaching us the use of the sword and a little of soldier's woodcraft as though we were his close kin. And he always spoke to me as an equal, though I was the youngest of the company. And rather often showing it," he added glumly, though it was this that brought a smile to Rhoswen's face.

"How many were in this company? You speak of it as though there were many of you."

"Nine, there were," Pippin said, gathering them up in his memory. "An elf of Mirkwood, and a Dwarf from the Iron Hills, myself and three of my kinsmen from the Shire. Boromir, of course, and a…a man of the North. And Gandalf," he added, remembering what Gandalf had said so many times about talking about the nature of the company.

"Gandalf?" Rhoswen asked politely.

"Mithrandir, I think he is called here. He has many names."

"Mithrandir is one I know," Rhoswen confirmed. "The Gray Pilgrim is well known in Gondor, though I met him once, before his visit here with you. It must have been a matter of some importance, if he came with on such a journey. Where did you meet Boromir and the others? Was it in Rivendell?"

"Indeed, lady. It is a place of constant wonder – the elves are…very different from my people, but we were welcome there."

"In some old tales it is called the Last Homely House," Rhoswen said. "I am glad to hear its doors are still open to visitors."

"Boromir liked it there," Pippin said. "They have great gardens that reminded him of you – I remember him telling us that you loved flowers. He never said your name then – he always just said 'my wife'."

"His wife." Rhoswen smiled and brushed away another tear. "It was so certain," she said absently, playing with something on a chain at her neck – a ring, Pippin thought it was, its green stone winking a moment in the sunlight. "Were you sure of your end once, Peregrin Took?"

Pippin, distracted momentarily by the ring, considered this. "Yes, once, I suppose. I had never considered it. To grow up, farm a little, become mayor or sheriff or one of those well respected gentlehobbits, and grow fat and content, and never see the outside of the Shire all my born days. And now that's out with the bathwater," he realized. "I doubt I shall ever be a farmer, and I've been further outside the Shire than anyone I've ever heard of, except maybe the Old Took, who was quite an adventurer in his youth, or Mr. Bilbo, but he only went to the Lonely Mountain, which isn't so far away as Gondor is."

"I do not know what people you speak of, but I think I was once like you," Rhoswen said. "I knew what my life would look like in the main – I would grow up and marry, and have many children who would be my life's work. And I would be happy in all of that. I was betrothed to Boromir, and came to the city to live as my father intended, as my mother and grandmother had gone to live with their husbands before me. And then he went away."

"And…and now, Lady?" Pippin asked, though for a moment he was not sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Now the darkness comes, Master Peregrin, and I do not know what my end will be. Only that it will probably come sooner than we intend." She gazed out again over the balcony, towards the dark clouds of Mordor, and her face was full of desolation.

"Do not despair, lady!" Pippin cried. "Boromir-" And he would have said more there but for the fell eyes of Gandalf in his mind, flashing in their anger. Rhoswen turned her gaze to the hobbit, confused.

"What of Boromir?" she asked, genuinely curious and just a little cautious, her brow creased as she tried to discern what he had been about to say.

"Boromir would not have you abandon hope," Pippin said lamely, ashamed that he could offer her no better solace and further ashamed that he would not try. But for his pains she smiled at least, and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"Well you knew him, Master Peregrin. Boromir would not lose hope, even until the bitter end – or at least he would have us think him so. And so I have tried to make it be with me. I have stayed in the city, even as I have bidden the other women and children to leave. Boromir would not retreat. I must honor his memory here."

Pippin felt shame sting at his conscience again. "It is getting late, Lady," he said, trying to find an excuse to leave. "I should leave you to your work."

"And I you to yours, Peregrin Took! I heard your promise to Denethor earlier – he shall want his newest servant to report for duty soon enough. Your company has been a great comfort to me this day – your stories have been a balm to much of my grief, though it may have not seemed so to you. You said you wished I would not sing of grief-filled things. Perhaps there is a song you may teach me from your country for joy-filled times."

"When we come to a time for joy, I shall teach you," Pippin promised. "Where do you go now, Lady?" her asked suddenly, watching her as she walked, not back towards the kitchens, but out towards another door.

"To the ramparts, Master Took – I feel I should speak with my brothers and with the Lord Imrahil, before the battle starts. They will wish to know what our situation is in the city, and I know it better than my Lord Denethor."

"Is it…is it bad? Bergil seemed saddened as they came in. "

"It could be worse," Rhoswen acknowledged. "The Out-Companies have been fleet of foot, and they are men we needed sorely, but we needed more. The company at Osgiliath is thinly spread, and they have much of our current strength. The city has troops, but few in reserve – with the Out-Companies we have come up to what should be full strength. We shall have no replacements for the men that fall."

"If Rohan were to come…" Pippin asked, thinking hopefully of the many mail-clad knights of the Riddermark, with their green cloaks and bright spears flashing in the sun on the way back from the ruins of Isengard.

"Rohan will not come," Rhoswen said flatly. "They have fought their own battles there without our aid – it would be hopeless to ask for the help of their men when we gave none to them. And the Lord Denethor will not light the beacon even for the utmost need. But if they would come…" she trailed off, turning her gaze back out across the plain, considering all of the possibilities with the air of a chess player looking at the board for their next move. "I have fought no wars….but if they would come I must believe that it would be a great help to us. Fare you well, Peregrin Took. Until our next meeting."

Pippin watched her leave, his heart still heavy, and he followed with some trepidation the same path that Rhoswen's eyes had taken up the side of the mountain where a small rocky spur stood capped with a roofed pile of wood – the first of the fabled beacons of Minas Tirith.

_If they would come…_

If he could do this for her, it might relieve her sadness in a way his news could not. _Well, Peregrin my lad, it shall be no different than climbing a tree,_ the hobbit told himself seriously, going to find Bergil to get directions for the quickest path towards the Beacon. _And towards a better end, too._

* * *

Rhoswen left the garden quickly, steering herself back to a deserted portion of the house before she leaned against the cool stone of the walls and closed her eyes, trying to calm her racing mind. A greater part of her day had passed in a single-minded haze, going over in her mind over and over the story that she had heard from the – what was he called again? – from the Halfling, Peregrin Took. And then to meet him and hear the tale again!

How quiet she had tried to be, hoping Denethor would not hear her and send her away! The Steward had seemed disgusted by her continued presence in his house, though he had not moved to send her away. She had no longer been welcome in the council chamber even to observe after her illness, and her attendance on court matters was never requested or remarked upon. She might as well have been dead in the Steward's eyes, given his treatment of her. It had mattered little when she had supposedly left the city – Denethor remained as he had always been, a man fettered by grief. His servants reported to hers that their master was forever changeable in his moods, at some hours morose and melancholy and at others filled with a kind of sinister joy, and that while he was in his study they heard him talking - to himself or another person, they could not say – in strange tones about the might of Gondor and the eventual war with Sauron. "Boromir would have brought me back a mighty gift," he was forever repeating to himself.

What mighty gift this was no one could say, but the thought of such a thing, whatever it was, had filled Rhoswen with dread. Boromir had died for it – for what else did that story of Pippin's mean? She had worked so hard not to make a sound in the Great Hall, but it was no use – when the hobbit spoke of the wounding of Boromir, she managed only to control herself by clapping a hand over her mouth like a child about to tell a secret. She would not flee from this news; she had promised herself that much. She would listen to the tale entire, and she did, realizing, in the midst of her own anguish, that it hurt Peregrin to tell the story as much as it hurt her to hear it. And something in her mind realized she must have more of the story, and so summoned Bergil.

She was glad, in the end, that she had done it – the hobbit was pleasant company, and Rhoswen was reminded of herself a little bit. Here was a person gone to war too young, a mind that should have been at play, sharpening his sword instead of jesting with his friends. Yet the young hobbit hid a keen heart and mind in that little body, for how else could he have made his pronouncements about her singing, and how Boromir would have her endure? The song would have meant nothing to the hobbit, but Rhoswen placed it too well – it had been one of the first songs Boromir had heard her sing, a jape from her brother to goad Boromir into remembering that betrothals have two sides, and he would do well to watch that he did not get himself killed. She had cried then, and she had tried hard not to cry in Peregrin's presence as he mentioned it.

Well, it was too late for that. There was her peace – she had learned how he had died. _Honorably, and in battle. As he would have wished it._ A small consolation if there was one in the story. _But consolations do not fight wars,_ Rhoswen reminded herself. _Living men do – and living men must eat, and eat at their posts, if the need is upon them._

Bergil had said her brothers were in the city – she could not openly visit them, as she was supposed to be in Lossarnach, far away from the fighting. But the gray-clad, grey-cloaked healers could pass among the ranks as a Lady could not, and she would at least see that they were well housed and well supplied before she returned to her other chores.

She made her way back to the kitchen, picking up one of the handkettles and ladling soup into it as some of the other healers were doing, taking it out into the city to feed the newly arrived troops, apron pockets loaded down with pieces of bread.

The sun was falling fast, and the light was already beginning to diminish in certain parts of the city, but Rhoswen still tied a scarf over her hair, as some of the other healers were wont to do, pulling it far down over her forehead to give her a far more foreign look. Someone would have to know her face very well to recognize her with such a headdress – and that was exactly the way she wanted it. Some of the men of her father's household had known her since she was a child, and the last thing she needed now was to be recognized by one of them.

Careful not to let any of her soup spill, Rhoswen made her way down to the Tower Commandery and out along the walls, where the Out Companies were sleeping for the night. She stopped among the Swan Knights for a brief moment to ask the whereabouts of the men from Anfalas, and was pointed down the wall a long ways, one of the last groups to receive the meager meal.

They were tired, the men from the Langstrand. Farmers and fisherfolk, all of them, and not used to long marches. Yet they had come all this way, with their ancestors' swords and ancient pikes that had long sat unused in her father's treasure house. And well it seemed they knew it, too – as she walked Rhoswen caught several longing glances at the members of the Tower Guard and their fine livery, shining in the diminishing sunlight as only well-kept steel can do.

There were already kitchen maids here among the commonfolk, and Rhoswen continued walking, in amongst her father's household guard. Here the swords were keener and brighter, though still little used, and these men each had a well kept and well-mended set of livery with the golden Ram of Anfalas embroidered on its front.

"Here, lass, what's that you've got there?" one of the gaurds asked, peering at her from behind a well-battered helm.

"Stew," Rhoswen said, holding out the kettle and letting her ladle clank against the side. "We of the city are grateful you've come, and we realize you must be hungry."

"Hungry! Near five days we've marched on short rations," one of the soldiers exclaimed with a broad smile. "And them cold, too," she heard one of his companions say, with much general mumbling to confirm this.

"If you've mess plates and spoons, then there's food in plenty for you, and more where this came from," Rhoswen said quickly, watching as the men nearest her dug through their packs, each man coming up with a more or less clean plate, holding them out like begging bowls for Rhoswen to fill with food.

The kettle held more than enough for the group she had found, and another healer had come down the row after her, tending to the next group.

"Is it good?" she asked, trying to make conversation with these men who, had they not been eating, might have known her face.

"Good? Heavenly!" one of the men proclaimed. "Give us another ladle, there's a good lass."

"Can I take you home with me when we're done with this?" one of the younger men, with a roguish glint in his eye, asked with a leering grin.

"My brother would not take kindly to you asking that, sir," Rhoswen said levelly, lowering her eyes and remembering that once she had been a prince's deer, and death to those that touched her. Could she be that prize still? To these men, certainly she was out of their reach. But as a drab in gray, she could be anyone.

"Shame on you for asking the girl, Foron," One of the older men in the group chided, sending a strong glance in the young man's direction. "Much thanks for your kindness, young mistress."

"It is we who should be thanking you," Rhoswen said, aware that the young man Foron would take that in the way it was not intended. His older messmate, however, stopped that beast before it was out of the thicket with a swift glance and an answer of his own.

"No thanks needed – our master thought it needful that we should come. His sister is the Lady Rhoswen, the wife of the Lord Boromir. We've blood ties with this city now, and blood defends blood. "

Rhoswen felt her eyes water, and was quickly thankful for the poor light in the city. "Is there aught else we can do for you?" she asked, brushing her hand past her face to blot the tears.

"Bless you, lass, no – though you might try seeing if our Lord will take a bite. Near a week we've been on the road here, and I do not think we've seen him take a mouthful." He gestured briefly with a spoon-filled hand to the furthest knot of men, the standard of Anfalas propped against the wall near them, and Rhoswen recognized her brother Carnil's close-cropped red hair in the midst of the crowd. Another healer was busy there with her own ladle, the crowd around her brother slowly trickled away as he dismissed them to eat, but he stayed where he was, evidently studying a map or plan of some kind.

"Please, my lord, will you not take something yourself?" she asked hesitantly, and Carnil looked over at her for a brief moment before returning his eyes to the map.

"No, healer, but I thank you." No sooner had his gaze returned to the map than his eyes sprang back to her, eyes wide, searching her face. "Sister?"

"Not here!" Rhoswen begged, not even willing to catch her brother's hand. "Not here, Carnil, not where they may see!"

"You are supposed to be in Lossarnach! Erun told us, he assured Father that -"

"Erun lied," Rhoswen said strongly. "I had my reasons, Carnil, you must know that. Where is Father? Is he well?"

Carnil's frown deepened. "No," he said sadly. "He is not well at all. He only came with us for you, Rhos, he said it was his duty as part of your dowry rights to help defend the city, and that compelled him more than any oath of loyalty could. He has been ill – it was a task just for him to ride here. I do not think he will see many battles after this one. No," he said, before Rhoswen had a chance to even ask. "You will not see him. He was so pleased you were far away from this place; it gave him strength when he thought he had none. To find that is a lie would kill him quicker than the battle will." His face was grim as he chastised his younger sister, but it did not stay so for long, softening a little as he remembered, perhaps, why it was she wished to stay in the city. "We were grieved to learn of Boromir's death. He was an honorable man, and would have been a good husband to you."

Rhoswen nodded. "I know it well," she said, nodding quickly to hide her tears. "I should go," she said quickly, glancing at the other groups along the wall, and the healers making their exit. "They will wonder why I have talked so long to you."

"I will tell them you had news of my sister," Carnil promised with a short smile. "That she was doing well. That is not a lie, I hope?"

"Well enough," Rhoswen acknowledged, wishing so much that she could embrace him as she had done of old. Carnil was the oldest of her brothers, twelve years her senior and always the first to defend her, to sooth her scrapes and comfort her with kisses. His children were her first nieces and nephews, and she thought, quickly, of the last of them, little Barhador, who had come to visit her in the city with his mother, her sister-in-law Baineth. If only she had one of her own to hold now.

She was about to ask her brother about his children when suddenly from the men in the ranks there rose a great cry, and a great deal of pointing up to the summit of the city, where a great flame had been kindled – the beacon of the city, used in time of great need to summon help to Minas Tirith. Along the ridge of the mountains another flame was coming into view, probably the place called Amon Din, the first of a long line of great watchtowers that would carry the message to Edoras far away. The sight made Rhoswen's heart leap – here, perhaps, was hope for the coming days!

None would have lit that beacon without the Steward's permission, and Rhoswen already knew well that Denethor would give no such command. Perhaps Imrahil had given the order, or perhaps it was only a fortuitous accident, a string rotting and coming loose to let the lantern there fall. It would not be stopped now – Rohan would see it whether Denethor wished them to or not, and they would decide whether or not to ride to the aid of Gondor.

_Please come_, Rhoswen prayed, watching the flame dance and weave at the mountain's peak. _We have more need here than you know._

* * *

If anyone cares, there is a reference to the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" in this chapter, one of my all-time favorite historical dramas. Props to you if you find it!

Thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter, and thanks, in advance, to everyone who sticks their oar in at this one. Special props to the Dork of York, who despite being one of the busiest people in my acquaintance always manages to write an *extensive* review and keeps my spirits up in between chapters.


	28. Chapter 28

_Aged Priam sat on his city wall  
and spied that monstrous Achillles driving  
his people in pell-mell retreat, no fight  
left in them – and descended the tower  
with a great groan and called his gatekeepers…  
So they flung the bars back, opened those gates,  
and rescued their armies, while Apollo  
rushed out to keep the Trojans from ruin.  
Straight for the city and its lofty wall,  
thirst-parched, smeared with dust churned up from the plain,  
they raced, as Achilles followed, madness  
in his heart, raging to win more glory.  
_

_-Achilles' Devastation after the death of Patroclus, _The Iliad_, Chapter 21, lines 525-530, 537-543, Michael Reck translation_

* * *

It began with the kind of scream that nightmares are made of.

Rhoswen did not know, immediately, from whence it came, but she found out soon enough, sitting amongst the soldiers in their own wing of the houses. It sounded like some demonic horn over the city, less of a call to arms and more a signal for the city to break into abject terror. When the soldiers heard it, those strong enough to stand did so, crowding over to the side of the room that overlooked down into the Pelennor fields, while others, veterans newly returned from the front, turned over in their beds in fear, hands crushed against their temples, crying in agony as the healers looked around the room in shock, their own hearts clutching in fear.

"Wraiths!" someone hissed, as if the name were a curse, and the call came again as if in answer, chilling those gathered against the walls with fear like they had never known before. But where? Rhoswen wondered, looking across the Pelennor fields, trying to find this wraith that the men spoke of.

And then she saw them. Great black beasts with wings made in a mockery of nature, hovering over the ruined city of Osgiliath, diving down into it with wild and almost joyful abandon. The room was so still you could almost hear the screams of the garrison at the river as the fell beasts had their fill of man and horse. It was an agony to watch, and then – slowly, so slowly – a line appeared against the Pelennor. A few men escaping here, and then another few there. The pride of Gondor's armies, the last ragged remains of the garrison at Osgiliath.

Retreating.

Everywhere they ran the beasts followed them, picking out stragglers from the pack that finally emerged from the remnants of the city, running recklessly to escape from whatever army had just crossed the river and driven them out of the city. And the wraiths, it seemed, were not finished. Rhoswen pulled away from the window and closed her eyes in pain as the beasts swept in and out of the retreating men, the screams of their horses now too loud to be ignored. It was too much – she could not watch such slaughter.

But outside the window, something must have changed, for the soldiers in the Houses were cheering now, urging someone, something across the plain. "The White Rider!" one man exclaimed. The cries of the beasts were different now, tinged in fear, and Rhoswen turned back to the window just in time to see the three winged creatures that had harassed the soldiers turn back towards Osgiliath, leaving the soldiers to retreat in peace. "Mithrandir!" the soldiers continued to shout. "Mithrandir and Faramir!"

_Faramir!_ Rhoswen felt her throat grow tight, and tears pricked her eyes. _Say not that he too has fallen_, she begged. _Tell me at least that Faramir has returned back to us._

He had indeed returned, tired and bloody but still alive, if only just. They did not see him in the houses, though most of the men who had returned with him had wounds of one kind or another. Tending to the men who now filled the halls of the houses, Rhoswen learned that he had gone to take council with his father and Mithrandir, spent though he was.

She remembered walking through the remains another battle at Osgiliath, and it seemed an age ago now, to look at these men. Last year they had laughed, congratulated themselves, toasted the sons of the Steward who had led them to such a great victory. It was hard to believe these were some of the same men who now sat silent, glassy-eyed as their wounds were attended to, hardly speaking, hardly looking into her eyes as if afraid they would find some judgement there for losing the city they had worked so hard to keep. When men did speak, it was with measured words and muted admiration for Faramir, who had worked so hard on the defense only to see it fall to pieces. "His own brother could not have done better," they said amongst themselves. "He has nothing to be ashamed of."

_Yet Denethor will find some shame in it_, Rhoswen thought to herself, smiling wanely at the next soldier she tended to, binding up a nasty looking slice on his hand that would certainly leave him without use of some of his fingers. _However much he will try, Faramir will never be Boromir._

Arthion's hand on her shoulder told her it was time for her to take a rest, which she did under duress, retreating to her room only when the Warden threatened to drug her into sleep. The day weighed at her, every mention of Boromir's name and the city of Osgiliath reminding her of so many things left unsaid and undone from that day to this. She was just about ready to close her eyes and sleep when there was a knock at the door of her little room, and a mild squeak as the door opened.

"Have you time to see another soldier, healer?" Pippin's kindly piping voice asked around the door, and Rhoswen looked up to see not only Pippin, but Faramir behind him, a bloody cut blooming on his forehead just beneath his hairline. Rhoswen nearly cried aloud, and ran to embrace him, hugging him close to her despite the gore on his garments and the rough feeling of his armor. He was not built the same as his brother, slighter of frame and a little shorter, but he smelled as Boromir had, and for a moment, Rhoswen let herself remember.

"I would not have forgiven you both for dying," she cried earnestly, the first thing that came to her mind. She felt Faramir give a short laugh, pulling himself away from her embrace to look at her.

"I was not sure what to think when young Master Peregrin told me to come here. They told me Lady Rhoswen had gone to Lossarnach not a week past," Faramir countered. "But this is not Lossarnach, and you are certainly Rhoswen."

"A ploy to make the people leave," she said quickly. "Most have left, though some remain here, healers and fletchers and smiths."

"And you among them," Faramir said, and there was a little bit of judgement in his voice.

"Boromir would not have left, and I must do as he would have done!" Rhoswen said hotly, and then, just as she said it, she realized how it must have sounded to his brother, who had just lost the city his elder brother had worked so hard to win. The fear and regret were tangible in Faramir's eyes. Rhoswen felt her heart bottom out. "Faramir, forgive me!" she cried, catching one of his hands in both of her own. "It was – "

"You of all people need never to ask forgiveness," Faramir said seriously, his own eyes bright with tears. A sudden wave of fatigue caught up with him, and he swayed a little on his feet, caught by Pippin and shepherded over to a chair just in time. Rhoswen glanced at his cut and dashed for the store cupboard, coming back with some comfrey salve to clean the wound and keep putrification out, and a fresh bandage.

They did not speak as Rhoswen washed the dirt from the wound and salved it – it had looked worse than it really was, and when the dried blood had been carefully washed away it had needed no bandage. Working in such closeness with Faramir let Rhoswen see exactly how tired he was – there were lines on his face that she did not remember being there before, and, brushing his hair away from the wound she could see strands of gray starting to creep in amidst the tawny.

Pippin had left them, coming back with food and drink. "He ate a little with the Lord Denethor, but it would not have been enough to hold me," he said, smiling shyly at Faramir's gaze of thanks and bowing himself out of the room to leave Rhoswen and the Captain in peace.

"Let me take stock a moment," Faramir said tiredly, after finishing off a well-laden cup of wine and finally settling back into his chair. "You are recovered from your fever, you have convinced the families of the city to leave, the Halfling Pippin is now in my father's service…have I missed aught else here that has changed in the last fortnight?"

"I believe that settles it," Rhoswen replied. "I have been here for several days past tending the wounded. I could not go to Lossarnach, Faramir," she pleaded with him. "It is a woman's duty to keep her house in order, and this city is my house, or as near to one as I will get now. Boromir would have sent me away, were Osgiliath burning or no, but Boromir is not here, and I would have denied his command even if he were here to give it." _And Osgiliath __does __burn_, she added silently, not wanting to heap the troubles of that battle onto Faramir's back a second time. Denethor will have done that enough for the two of us.

Faramir nodded, distracted by some other train of thought entirely, his gaze directed east, towards the solid wall of Rhoswen's room. But his eyes were not on the wall – they were beyond it, watching his fortress, the last defense of Gondor, burn and smoke with a baleful fire. Far, far in the distance Rhoswen heard another wraith lash out with their screaming cry, and something inside her shuddered in fear. That beast was coming with Sauron's Army straight to the gates of this city, now that Osgiliath was out of the way.

"Faramir, is the enemy truly coming? Is this really Sauron, come out of Mordor?" Rhoswen asked, the beast's cry echoing in her mind.

"It will not be Sauron himself who leads them, but it is his army – there can be no mistaking it. The Red Eye is their badge, and they have painted it in the blood of men."

"But why now, when Minas Tirith has ever dwelt in his shadow? Why does he think he can break the world of Men?"

"Because he knows he has already broken some of the great men of this age," Faramir said bitterly. Rhoswen was surprised at his tone, and he reconsidered, wringing his hands, unsure of how or where to start his tale. "Boromir told you, before he left, why he was going north, to take counsel with the elves of Imaladris. He did not tell the truth entire, it seems," he began. " All of this I have learned a little while ago, and it does not make full sense to me yet, but this is the story as I have riddled it out. Long ago, there was a great weapon forged by the Enemy, a ring of terrible power that he could use to bend men to his will and work… dire magic.

"When he was defeated by Isildur, the ring was lost. And one of the elves, it seems, found it again. The counsel was undertaken to decide what to do with it, this Ring of Doom. Boromir went as our emissary, and Father…" Faramir's usually strong voice faltered, his grasp on the story slipped for a few tenuous moments, leaving his audience hanging on his every stuttering word. This revelation seemed too much for him, but he endured on. "Father told him to appeal to the council for it, to bring it here, to Gondor, so that we might use it against him. And the very idea has already driven my father mad," he wept softly.

"Do you not see? It is what has driven him these past months! All this planning for Boromir's wedding, and leaving you with Boromir at Osgiliath," Faramir explained. "He seeks to become something more than Steward with the help of the Ring of Power! No longer stewards, but the heirs to a new line of Kings, to be begun with Boromir, or his sons!"

_No longer Stewards. A new line of Kings._ The words rang like a death knell in Rhoswen's mind, and she felt her blood run cold. It would have been an easier story to hear if she did not have a part in it, but she was bound up in all of it as surely as if she had been born to this family and the same wretched, power-mad father. _Boromir or his sons._ Well, there would be little of either now. But it explained so much of Denethor's behavior, his contravention of social codes when it had come to their betrothal. _Little did he know his son,_ Rhoswen reflected with a kind of bitter joy. _Boromir cared too much for honor to follow his father's commands exactly. Presented with a woman for his queen and the path to kingship, he turned it aside._ Yet something from this story still troubled her.

"How did you come to learn of this ring?" Rhoswen wondered aloud.

"I have seen it," Faramir said, his voice a distant whisper, and Rhoswen's heart went cold again. Here was a Faramir she did not know – his eyes were bright with a secret flame for a moment, and she could see as plainly as if it were one of his stories the life he had imagined for himself while he had held the ring in his eyes – the silver pennants, and the sound of triumphant laughter, the adoring gazes of the women and the proud cheers of men, the affection of his father and the adoration of his city. "A chance for Faramir, captain of Gondor, to show his quality," he repeated in his whisper, the sadness of a life lived his brother's shadow evident in his every tone. "And I did not take it," he said finally, the light dying from his eyes. "I have stood in its presence and looked upon and heard all the Dark Lord's works and all his empty promises, and I know what it does to men, Rhoswen. What it is doing to my father…what it doubtless did to Boromir. He did not care for power, as my father does, but he was a proud man, and pride can corrupt as surely as the desire for a crown."

Rhoswen's heart, already so heavy, fell further still. There seemed no way to win this battle. "So, what will we do?" she asked softly.

"I will do what I must do. Gather the army and try to retake Osgiliath." His pronouncement had a hollow sound, his voice that of a man already defeated.

Rhoswen gasped. "But that is madness! Even Boromir would not risk such a thing!"

"But it is what he desires, and what he will order me to do. And I cannot disobey him. Madman or not," Faramir said heavily. "I cannot order you to leave the city, Rhoswen, but I can beg," He said suddenly. "I cannot face my brother in death if I must tell him I left you here to die."

"Do not speak so!" Rhoswen plead. "You will return," she reassured him hopefully, her hand tight on his arm. "With trumpets and singing and silver banners, and all of it," she added with a smile. Faramir returned the smile weakly, and rose from his seat, kissing her cheek in farewell as he went for another council with his father.

She could not join the people in the streets, bidding farewell as Faramir's troops marched out to face the army now encamped as Osgilaith. It was too close to Boromir's departure for Osgiliath all those months ago. She watched them ride out of the city from the Houses, some three hundred cavalrymen against a tide that would never turn.

"There is still time to leave Minas Tirith, Lady," Maireth reminded her, waiting at the door for her mistress' answer. "There are safe roads that we might take into the hills."

"I will not leave, Maireth," Rhoswen said solidly. "These are my people, and this is my city. I must do what I can for them. If we do not hold them here, there will be no safe roads left in Middle Earth for anyone." The words spilled out without seeming real, but as she spoke them, hearing them aloud made them truthful. That was what had driven Faramir out onto the plain before the city – not his father, or his pride, but his love for Minas Tirith, and for all the good green things growing on the earth. _If we do not stop them here, who will? _

"They will need me in the houses," Rhoswen reminded herself. _I will do for them what I could not do for Boromir. I will keep them alive._ "Keeping watch here will not bring him back."

_Does she speak of Faramir or Boromir_, Maireth wondered, following her mistress back into the Houses of Healing. The first person Rhoswen went to find was Arthion, checking store cupboards with a grim look on his face, doubtless wondering if their supplies would hold them through the siege approaching their gates.

"Whatever you do with me, Master, do not move me from this place."

Arthion looked at her, bewildered, and Maireth could see why – there was a fire in her eyes unlike anything she had ever seen there, the fierce determination of the battle-maidens of legend.

_Oh, child, if only we knew what was coming here,_ Maireth thought to herself, watching Rhoswen for a moment more and then casting her glance back towards the Pelennor Fields where Faramir and his company now rode. _Will any of us leave this place?_

* * *

_She rushed from the hall like a madwoman,  
heart hammering, beside her handmaidens.  
and when she came to the throng in the wall  
she stood staring toward the plain and saw him  
being dragged before the town; those horses  
piteously bore him toward the ships.  
So a murky haze enveloped her eyes,  
and she fell backward in a faint,  
her splendid headdress tumbled to the ground…  
After she recovered consciousness,  
she wailed among the women of Ilios,  
"Oh Hector!  
Now you go to Hades deep in the earth,  
Leaving your wife to her bitter sorrow,  
widowed in your palace, our child so young -  
Poor miserable boy – and you can be  
no comfort for him, Hector, now you're dead…  
_

-Andromache's Lamentation for the death of Hector, Book 22 of the Iliad, lines 460-468, 475-477, 482-486, Michael Reck translation

* * *

In the beginning of the battle Rhoswen had jumped at every sound, every shattering wall, every shriek of pain.

Now she found she had no more cringes left in her shoulders or shaking left in her hands. Her back was rigid, her fingers steady. Covered in blood, perhaps, but steady just the same. The walls were shaking with frightening regularity, and there were reports that the enemy had smashed the gates and was, even now, inside the walls of the city. It would be some time before they came this way – some six or seven gates stood between them and the uppermost levels, and at least some several companies of soldiers to bar their way as well.

"Lady, you should sleep," Arthion was saying desperately. "All the others have at least had some four or five hours of rest throughout the night, and you have taken none."

"I cannot sleep," Rhoswen said, businesslike, wiping the back of her hand across her brow and the kerchief she had tied there long since to keep her hair from falling in her face. It had been a lavender color when she had put it on - heaven alone only knew what color it was now, soaked with sweat and grit from falling rocks and the blood of countless surgeries. "This is done," she said, rising from the soldier whose arm she had been bandaging and going to the next man.

"You cannot work like this, without rest. It is madness!" the head healer drew close. "You should not be here at all," he said softly, his voice sharp."There is still time to take the road into the mountains and flee to Lossarnach."

"What use am I in Lossarnach?" Rhoswen asked bluntly, expertly soaking her cleaning rag and setting to the man's cut forehead, peeling the dried blood away from the cut and his hairline. "And before you would ask me for rest, I will spare no herbs to help me sleep. There are many more here who have need of them."

"What will your family in Anfalas think, if it is made known to them you stayed in the city?"

"My brothers and father are all here in the city, Arthion. They will all either die with me or live with me. If they live, your problem is solved, and if they die, I will have no family left to tell," Rhoswen reasoned swiftly, taking an ungainly fingerful of salve out of one of her pots and spreading it over her patient's cut.

"What of Boromir, lady? What would he say to all of this?"

"He is dead, and we need not worry about him," she said flatly, trying not to think about it over much.

"And if he lives, my lady?" Arthion asked quietly, almost desperately. The hope in his voice gave Rhoswen pause. "A broken horn is an unsure sign."

"Then I will be here waiting for him, as is my duty. Alive or dead," she added. The head healer shook his head but left her to her work, and Rhoswen returned to binding the head wound of the man in front of her, her mind back in the present, no room left for hopes of a returning betrothed.

_Help will come,_ she seemed to keep repeating to herself in her empty moments. _Help must come._

The line of wounded was never ending – cuts and bruises, fingers and arms crippled by falling rock, skin sutured into ridges by chain-mail rings driven into the flesh, broken limbs by the score – and those were not even the worst wounded. Those, to Rhoswen, were the men who came in without scars or wounds to tend, their only malady a haunted numbness reaching deep back into their eyes, the men who did not speak except to cry in fear, or rise to greet anyone except with that stance that suggested attack. There was nothing one could do for them except press a cup of hot tea into their hands, smile, lock hands for a moment, whisper that the world would be right when the battle ended. They were like little children and old men at the same time, all at once new to the world and overweary of it.

The sun had long since ceased to shine on Minas Tirith – the clouds were thick, and would not allow it through, and beyond the clouds it should have been reckoned night anyway. But long hours had passed, and in some corner of Rhoswen's body, she knew it should be morning soon. _At least, in decent places where morning still comes,_ she thought moodily.

But where a cock's crow should have been, she heard instead a sound deep in the distance, almost as if it were coming out of a dream, clear and bright and beautiful to hear. No war-cry nor wraith-keen, but…really, could it be?

"What horn is that?" She asked, winding her way over to the window and looking over the edge. Beyond the burnt black shell of the first three levels of the city there were numberless hordes of orcs and goblins, and beyond them, to the North, almost so welcome, so anticipated it should have been a dream, were row upon row of Rohirrim, coming over a rise with the first tender notes of dawn sounding behind them. Rhoswen could have cried. "We are saved," she whispered. The whole company blew forth one clear note on their horns, and something stirred in Rhoswen's heart again.

It was too much – she could not look away. Men who could not move stayed in their cots while their companions shouted to them across the room, describing the scene before the city – the ranks of Rohirrim moving forward like the point of a vast spear, cutting through the ranks of the enemy and scattering them. Rhoswen pressed herself against the window-sill, her eyes flooded with tears of joy.

A great cry went up from the ranks outside – "They are retreating!" someone watching at the hillside said. And then there came another note as of a strong horn blowing, wavering and wild, a different sound than what had come before. A terrible roar rose up, and the men at the window paused, some stepping away, faces awash with fear. "What is it?" men around them asked, trying to rise from their cots. "What do you see?"

"Moving mountains," one soldier said finally, frightened enough to move back a step, but still held in thrall by the grisly scene before him.

"Mumakil," someone said grimly. "Oliphants from the south. Sauron does not command only Orcs, it seems."

The tide turned. What had seemed a rout turned quickly against them – for what hope does a horse have against a creature five times its size and fiercely angry? Théoden's riders scattered across the plain, some striking at the legs of the oliphants, their arrows like pinpricks against the vast expanse of gray, weathered skin, others tripped up and struck down racing against their wide white horns._ Hope, how you flee from us_, Rhoswen thought wearily. She could feel the stiffness in her knees now from kneeling near too many dying men, the ache in her shoulders and the pounding in her head. Yet still she must go on. If she was seen to stop, to flee, they might all flee with her. _But where is there to run to now?_

This scene she could not watch – the dying screams of men and horses, the thudding crash as great bodies lumbered to the ground, breathing their last. Work would not satisfy her mind any longer – it was all she could do to remain pressed here against this wall, in this sheltered place, and breathe. She might have bourne it better if the change had not been so quick – but they had smelled success, and then so quickly the bitterness of defeat. All around her the sounds of battle echoed through the stonework – hammers beating down walls, the clash of swords and the splinter of shields.

_So, this is what it is like to go into battle. This is what it is like to face certain death._

"Help!" cried a soldier near the doors of the houses. "Help for the Steward's son!"

Rhoswen's head jerked around to see Faramir, being carried in by another man whose face was so covered in smoke and grit it was hard to see his eyes. Some force pulled her upward, some unknown, unseen strength propelled her legs towards him, stumbling through the maze of bodies in the Houses, recovering her courage as she ran.

"Careful - He is covered in oil; the Steward tried to burn him alive," the soldier said, his shoulders sagging as he was relieved of his burden by Arthion and Rhoswen. _How heavy he is_, Rhoswen though, nearly collapsing under the near dead weight of the Ranger Captain.

"Burn him alive?" Arthion roared in horror.

"He thought his son was dead – he did not wish to perish in the battle below," the solider said, half in answer and half-apology.

"Dead?" Arthion repeated, putting a hand expertly to Faramir's bloodied brow. "Far from dead, I should think! He should have been brought to us immediately. How long has he lain like this, in fever?"

"I could not say," the soldier said, glancing towards the door as if he had a dire need to be in some other place.

"Where is Denethor now?" Rhoswen asked.

"Gone to the halls of his fathers," the man replied shortly, "Please take care of Faramir." And with that, he was gone, bounding out the doors and back into the melee beneath them in the city. _Denethor dead_, Rhoswen thought blindly, still staggering under Faramir's weight. _What becomes of us?_

"We have no beds left," Arthion exclaimed, his voice quietly anxious.

"Let us put him on the cot meant for me," Rhoswen said, her mind miraculously clear again. No matter what was going on below her, she must save Faramir. "It is clean and he will be out of the way of the others. Do not give me that look, Warden – I have more reason to forgo sleep now than before. BERGIL!" she shouted, louder than she anticipated sounding after hours without rest, her voice hoarse but no less desperate. The little boy came running, just as covered in grime and blood as she was. Brave little thing, to have been here all this time.

"Bergil, I need a nightshirt from the supply cupboard," Rhoswen said over her shoulder, easing Faramir down on the bed and letting Arthion go back to his other duties.

"They've used them for bandages, lady," Bergil replied hopelessly.

Rhoswen rolled her eyes half in disgust and half in exasperation. "Then you shall have to be very quick on your feet, Bergil, and run to the lord Faramir's room for one of his own. He has been doused in oil and his fever builds quickly."

Bergil nodded grimly (no child should ever have to look that grim, or that old, Rhoswen thought to herself) and scampered off, weaving expertly in and out of the busy healers and the constant stream of wounded being sent or carried up to the Houses.

Rhoswen set to stripping away Faramir's oil soaked clothes, careful where the fire had touched them to make sure she took away no skin with his tunic or trousers. Someone brought a large basin of water and a piece of toweling, and Rhoswen set to sponging the oil off of Faramir's skin, setting another wet rag to his forehead to try and calm his fever. Presently Bergil came back with the nightshirt, breathing heavily from having run all the way to the Captain's room and back.

_Oh, please wake, Faramir. Please. I have no one else left here but you._

_I cannot order you to leave the city, Rhoswen, but I can beg. I cannot face my brother in death if I must tell him I left you here to die. _Faramir's words echoed darkly in her mind, and Rhoswen felt her eyes ache again as if she were about to start crying. She brushed her hand against her eyes and sent Bergil to the store cupboards for yarrow and feverfew, and water for boiling while she built up the fire in the little chamber, pulling the little window shut to keep the heat inside.

"You will not see Boromir in death today, Faramir," Rhoswen promised frantically, speaking to a pair of unopened eyes. The lids fluttered, as if trying to open, and Faramir's head lolled a little on his pillow, a small moan escaping his lips, as if he were trying to speak to her. "You will not! You will survive this day, and many other days. You will come up from this bed and find peace has come back here. There will be – there will be a whole host of maidens who will wish to speak with you, and they will call you a hero and never speak of your brother again without saying 'But his brother, Faramir, now, there was a warrior.' Oh, Faramir, please don't leave!"

It seemed an age for the water and the herbs to boil, another age to bring it down to a temperature a dying man could drink. Her world shrunk down to a single room, to a single row of flagstones, the path she paced while she waited for the water to come to a boil. Time came and went like the bubbles on the surface of the water. Rhoswen poured carelessly, her hands shaking as she tried to both hold up Faramir's shoulders and the flask containing the herbs, and Faramir's chin ran sloppily with the mixture. In a few tense minutes his breathing had leveled, and his face was no longer wracked with pain. But he did not wake as he should have.

Rhoswen sat back and breathed for a moment, realizing as she did so, that the city was silent – no screams of men, no flying stones. Nothing. Only the sound of the wind. Rhoswen opened the window a fraction and blinked in surprise – the sun was out again, piercing through the clouds that had covered the city since the battle had started.

_Can it really be over, just like that?_

She made her way to the door of the room and looked out into the corridor, trying to find someone who could tell her what had happened. Finally Thariel came past, looking frantically in all the rooms she passed, her expression almost one of panic.

"Thariel, where is everyone? Has…has it ended?" she asked, bewildered and ashamed that she had been so occupied with Faramir she had not noticed the attack on the city had stopped.

"My lady!" the young woman cried in joy. "There are men in the great hall with Lord Imrahil and Mithrandir! They have asked for maps and refreshment, and the lord of the Rohirrim is among them, and Lord Erun bid me to find you. You must go! It is – there is - " But she could not find the words.

"The captains of the west," Rhoswen whispered. They would have news of how Boromir had died. She glanced at Faramir, sleeping soundly now, and for a moment, her heart was torn.

"I will watch the Lord Faramir," Thariel said quickly, when she saw her lady's hesitation. "You must go!"

She didn't know why, but something in Thariel's voice compelled her to run, all the way from the houses up to the King's house and the Great Hall. She had to stop for a moment before the doors to the hall, straying from her path and toward the edge of the parapet. She had not seen the battle save from the small windows of the houses, and she could see , now, why the noise had been so great. On the Pelennor, vast and dark below, it seemed there was no longer grass, only corpses and burning battle wreckage. A curious smell hung in the air alongside the silence, and all of it made Rhoswen uneasy. _What news do the captains bring us? Have more of the mighty fallen?_

She entered through a side-aisle in the back of the room, not wanting to draw the attention of the men by coming through the main doors. There they were, hunched over a table with the requested maps and a ready flagon of water to hand, all of them stained and bloody, shoulders slumped in fatigue, muttering amongst themselves.

"My lords," she said suddenly, and the men at the table turned, allowing her to see their faces. Imrahil she knew, and Mithrandir, and Erun, too, who smiled to see her. Why was he smiling? He looked weak on his feet and there was a gash on his leg that needed tending. And…someone else, whose face she could not see yet. Tall, and golden-haired, and as he turned she almost lost her legs, so weak was she with joy. Stumbling on tired feet, she cried out, one very sore knee hitting the floor. The man – no, it was no mere man, she knew him for more than that – turned further, and seeing her his eyes welled up with joy.

She could not even cry his name, recovering her feet and racing to embrace him, her eyes filled with tears. He was no ghost, and no shadow either – only a living man, with living flesh. She might have stayed in his embrace forever – and by his grip, he might have let her, too. Standing in his gaze was like standing in the sun – she felt warm, blissfully warm, and content, and safe. "You are a dream," she said, dazed, almost blinded. The rest of the world had stilled around them.

"Then at least I am a good dream," Boromir whispered with a smile, and there was no reason for her not to think him real.

She wanted to sit in the hall and weep tears of great joy, she wanted to join hands and laugh and dance and fill his face with kisses. She wanted the rest of the world to melt away until there was nothing left except Boromir.

But peace is an elusive beast, and the world's turning does not wait for lovers and their meetings. If he were not a general, and she were not mistress of the city, perhaps. But a reluctant chorus of coughs and shuffling feet and sighs slowly drew them back into the world's spin.

"Well, this is a poor welcome for the captains of the west when only kitchen maids come to greet us," the Horse Lord said acidly, the voice of a man trying to hide his grief in anger.

"This is no kitchen maid, though for all the world she looks it," Boromir said happily, a few tears cutting paths down the grime on his face. He brushed a thumb across Rhoswen's face, trying to brush away a tear. "This is the Lady Rhoswen, my intended."

Rhoswen could not let go of Boromir, this one victory singing in her veins. _You are woman of Gondor, _something inside her said._ You have stone in your blood and bones, not the weeping changeability of the willow-branch! You know the strength of the wind and you yet endure. Get up and speak to them!_

She stopped her tears, blotted her face, composed her smile into something a little less desperate and silly, grasped Boromir's hand tightly for a moment and let it go. Time enough for that later, when no one could see. She was Lady of the City now, and she would speak when spoken to. She knew only a few faces here –The rest of the men (well, at least one of the company was an elf and one a dwarf, but apart from that, all men) were strangers to her, not being from Gondor, it seemed. Their dress was foreign but their faces noble – these, it seemed, were the captains of the Free Folk, all allies against Sauron.

"I thank you, my lords, and I bid you be welcome here. Anything we have that you need will be given while you are here. You have but to ask. I can arrange for food to be brought, if you would like not to break your planning."

It felt safe, hiding behind the laws of hospitality and the formal rule of a hostess, a way to tell herself that she could not go again to Boromir's arms just yet._ Boromir is alive!_

"Food sounds like a blessing, but I fear we have more pressing needs, Lady Rhoswen," Imrahil said kindly. "What we need are healers, and men to move the dead," the Swan Prince said, voice and face both grim. "If we do not clear the streets of the lower city, we will have disease and all the manner of unpleasant creatures to deal with in a few days. Who is the master-warden of the Houses now? The wreckage of the walls, too, will need to be cleared away, though that is not so pressing. And the living will need to be fed."

"The men of Gondor and Rohan we will bury, on the plain. The rest we shall burn," Boromir decided, turning away from her, remembering his duty, too. "I could not tell you the Warden's name, though I should know it."

"When you send your squire to the houses, Lord Imrahil, tell him to ask for Master Arthion – he is the man you need. I shall see if the master mason of the stonecutter's guild can be found and every trundle and barrow the city possesses shall be at your disposal. I will also see what we can do for firewood and oil to burn the corpses," Rhoswen said quickly, not daring to look at Boromir. "Perhaps some of the wreckage of the lower city can be used to put the dead to the torch. When your men are done with that task I will also see that a place is prepared for them to sleep, and there is food ready at hand. For your lordships, as well," she added.

The captains had looked as though they were about to turn her away, discard her help without a second thought, but now the circle around the table seemed to open to her, the men around it impressed that in the figure of this one person, this female person, they had found so many of their answers.

"Will this master of the houses give us a count of the wounded and the dead?" the Horse-lord who had been so dismissive of her asked.

"He can, my lord, though I can give that count just as well for those who lie inside the houses. Our beds are full, our floors as well, and we have still men who lie in the city in need of tending, and on the field, as you well know." Her mind shot back to the Houses, to one bed in particular, and she found she could no longer ignore Boromir. He would have to be told. "My lord," Rhoswen said, locking her eyes with Boromir's, "Your brother…" She could not even bring herself to say it.

"Does he stir from his fever? I left him in the houses myself only an hour past."

Rhoswen laughed, though it sounded more like a sob to anyone who cared to listen. "It was I who took him from you, lord," she said, more amazed than anything else that she had seen him and not known to whom it was she spoke. "I have tended him as best I can, but he does not stir from his fever, though it has calmed a little."

"All is seen as it is willed to be seen," Mithrandir said cryptically. "Lord Boromir had work yet to do and little time for meetings then. If you will put reunion off a while longer, Lady, we should see the Lord Faramir. There may be someone here who can help him – and more, I think, who will need his healing." He was looking at another man in the company, who stood close but seemed not to fit here, wearing the dark clothes of a Northern Ranger, a type seldom seen in the White City. _Perhaps he is not as he appears, either_, Rhoswen wondered as she led the captains to the Houses of Healing. _We live in strange days, it seems._

When they came to Faramir's room the Ranger pulled away from the group, going to the bedside of the steward's youngest son and laying his hand against Faramir's skin, his frown deepening as he felt for pulse and breathing.

"What can he do here that the healers cannot?" Rhoswen asked Boromir quietly as they crowded into the small room, the ranger Aragorn and Mithrandir at the bedside. "I have given him the benefit of every bit of knowledge we possess here." She was close to him now, but closed, in a way – the smell of death everywhere seemed to dispel her desire to cling to him and reassure herself she was not dreaming.

"Aragorn has spent time among the elves; he knows their ways as if they were his own," Boromir said. "There is no skill in all of Middle Earth to match the healing arts of the Elves." He added, sounding reminiscent as he said it.

"Have you the arrow that wounded him?" this Aragorn asked; the company shook their heads.

"There were more pressing needs at hand – but when I cast it aside I took it for one of Southron make," Prince Imrahil said. "He fell early in the battle, after the charge to retake Osgiliath."

"It matters not where it came from, only that it was poisoned. Had they seen him earlier in the houses his condition would not be so grave. This may now be beyond my skill," the ranger admitted. "I am no Elrond Peredhil, and the Shadow lies heavy on him. But something may yet be done, if only to give him peace. Is there one here who knows herbs in this house?" he asked, turning towards the door and the woman nearest him, who happened to be Ioreth.

"Aye, my lord," the old lady managed, though Rhoswen knew from her look she was about to be very long winded about where the Herbmaster could be found. "Though what help he may be I know not. Our supply is depleted greatly, what with the fires and the city collapsing and all that. We've had a fair few days here, I can tell you –"

"I care not for great stores; I need only a little quantity, and that of only one herb. It is called athelas – do you know it?"

"Athelas," Ioreth repeated, looking confused.

"Kingsfoil it may also be called," Aragorn clarified. Ioreth's eyes beamed, and she nodded.

"Oh, that! Yes, we have, and often I used to remark on how strange a name it was. A strange little plant, of no apparent use. And why should it be called kingsfoil, we used to ask. But there is a little rhyme, if I can remember how it goes -"

"Then will you please fetch some," the ranger plead, sending Ioreth off in a bustle that someone would not like to hear the full measure of her opinion.

She returned some moments later empty handed, the herbmaster of the house, a man named Glaewron, following behind her.

"Ioreth has said you have asked for kingsfoil, the plant also reckoned athelas in the old tongue," the herbmaster said, twitching his fingers nervously. Rhoswen did not have many dealings with this man, who was seldom seen in the Houses proper and even less seldomly interacted with patients. More a academic than anything else, she doubted he would be very helpful.

"Yes, and I care not whether you call it asea aronion or Huan's Herb so long as you have some!" the ranger nearly roared. The herbmaster, cowed by such a show of force, murmured some vague repetition of what Rhoswen already knew – there was none to be had in the house stores.

"Cannot any be found in the city?" Aragorn said, a small measure of hopelessness in his voice. Glaewron wrung his hands and Ioreth murmured something about her sister's house on the first level, but that was sure to be in ashes now. And Rhoswen remembered her garden, above them now, where she had sown the seeds Serawen had tossed aside so easily. Rosemary, and Lady's mantle, feverfew and wort…and she had planted kingsfoil, too, for she liked the scent of it!

"I think I know of where some may be found," Rhoswen said quickly, glancing at Faramir before dashing out of the room. She slipped into the corridor, half-running until she collided with Bergil, headed in the opposite direction looking half- hopeful and half-grim.

"They say the lord Faramir is close to death and a great lord of the north is here to give him medicine," the little boy said breathlessly.

"Yes, Bergil, he is, and it may well save him. Come, be quick of feet with me. There is something in my garden the lord needs."

Up, up they climbed, and the stairs seemed an eternity to the top and past the small concealed door to Rhoswen's garden. It was high enough up that no debris had landed here, although the deep troughs formed by claws in the dirt gave some indication one of the fell beasts had landed here, or sought to.

"What are we looking for?" Bergil asked as Rhoswen practically ran to her flowerbeds, searching for the tiny green leaves of the kingsfoil.

"Kingsfoil," Rhoswen said, shouting in agony as she searched and searched, not remembering where she had planted it. _"_You have seen me with the stalk often enough, a small leaf with a silver cast. If it matters not whether 'tis fresh or cut, I hope wilted will not mind to our elven friend." The plants here had sore need of water, for everywhere they drooped and wilted, wanting for tending. She had been busy in the houses of late, and had made no time for this garden.

Finally - A glimmer! Rhoswen pulled nine or ten sorry looking shoots from the parched soil, throwing loose dirt in all directions. She rinsed them in the fountain, ripping the roots away and leaving the stems alone. "Take this," she said, folding the leaves in a scrap of cloth she found in her pocket, the binding from some herbal jar or another. "Tell the lord…Aragorn, yes, that is the name, that it was good and growing some two weeks past and we hope that it will serve. If ever your feet were quick, Bergil, make them quick now!" she pled, and Bergil nodded, bolting from the door and down the steps back to the Houses. When she could no longer hear his footsteps outside Rhoswen collapsed, her knees too weak to bear her weight. _Please let that be enough for Faramir and the others. Please._

After long hours in the hustle and bustle of the Houses, it seemed strange to sit here now and hear only the sound of the wind ripping at the banners still out on the field, presiding over the dead. She took a deep breath, letting her heart slow and her eyes close.

So much had happened in the last few hours – Denethor dead, Boromir living, Faramir waiting on the whim of a few small leaves. Her father and brothers were somewhere in the city, and she would have to find them later. And somewhere, she knew that not all of this was over yet. The Eye still watched from Mordor.

But Boromir yet lived. That much was a light to her in the coming darkness. She did not know how, and she did not care. She rose when the great weight on her chest seemed lighter, walking as quickly as she could back to the Houses. The rooms smelled faintly of flowers, a tantalizing blend she could not name. In three of the rooms steaming bowls with the poor athelas floated on them, giving off the strange, enticing smell.

"And here is our helper, I think," Mithrandir said as the ranger Aragorn emerged from the last room, wiping his hands. "Lady Rhoswen, allow me to introduce to you the Lord Aragorn."

"I thank you, sir, for your service to Faramir," Rhoswen said, bowing a little. This was the Ranger who had come with Boromir and the others, yet now that the steam had washed a little of the grime from his face, and his long hair was bound back a little, his face had an almost noble cast to it.

"We must thank you, Lady, for your garden and your quick feet. More than one life was saved by that gesture. There is a hobbit lying here, a friend of Pippin's, and a lady who had great need as well."

"A lady?" Rhoswen asked, confused. Mithrandir nodded, pointing the way down the hall.

The room to which her nose led her had but two people in it – the Rohirric man who had spoken so harshly earlier, and a young woman, perhaps but a little older than Rhoswen, with the pale golden hair that was so common to her people spread out across her pillow. Her left arm was bound up and in a sling, and her face, too, was cut and bruised. Has she been in the battle, too? Rhoswen wondered. I have never heard of a woman riding to war with the men. The man at her side turned at the sound of people in the doorway, and he glanced at Rhoswen only briefly before speaking to Aragorn. "She sleeps now," he said with relief.

"I am glad to hear of it. We will leave her, for a while – there are counsels we must take together." Aragorn nodded to Rhoswen, taking his leave of them, and leaving her in the doorway as the young man rose from the woman's bedside, arranging the sheets around her body with a tenderness seldom seen in warriors.

He turned towards the doorway, and stopped for a moment, catching sight of Rhoswen and ducking his eyes for a moment in shame. "You will please forgive my speech, earlier. I have …many things to think of now besides my words. Like my sister," He said, glancing down at the body in the bed.

"I was a sister once, and may be still, for all I know. I know what a brother's love is like," Rhoswen said in reply.

The Rohirric man nodded, his grief heavy on his face, and Rhoswen laid her hand on his arm in what she hoped was a comforting fashion. She saw little enough of the Horse-men in the city to know their customs well. "What is her name?" she asked, looking at the fair, pale face lying on the bed, arms drawn above the covers so that all could see the chilling bruises there. _What brought you here to Minas Tirith, warrior-maid? What was so urgent in your heart that you could not stay home?_

"Éowyn, daughter of Eomund," the man said sadly. Rhoswen recognized the name and looked anew at the Rohirrim.

"This is the King's niece?" she asked, surprised that so high-born a maid should be here among the dying. _But they do things differently in Rohan. Perhaps there it is not so terribly thought of for a woman to ride to war._

"This is the King's sister, now," the man said, and Rhoswen realized to whom she had been speaking. There was enough talk of politics in Minas Tirith to supply her with that much. Éomer, son of Eomund, nephew to the king. They had had news of Théodred's death weeks ago, so this young man had become Théoden's heir. Which meant that now the old king was dead somewhere on the Pelennor.

"I am sorry for your loss, my lord Éomer. I will take care you do not lose more."

Éomer nodded, turning away from his sister to look anew on Rhoswen. "When the Lord Boromir stopped in Edoras, on his way north, he spoke at length of the woman he would marry. Bright and beautiful, he called her, and without match among the great houses of Middle Earth. Many men disdained him for it, called my sister forth as an example of a greater woman, and blamed his words on a love-sick heart. I see now what he said was true."

"You are kind to say so, my lord," Rhoswen said sincerely.

"I must see to my men," Éomer said, moving to the door with the stiffness of a man who has sat for too long in one posture, his moment of levity passed. "They lie still on the field and are in need of tending."

"What we have and whomever we can spare from our own people will certainly go with you, if you would speak to the Warden of this place," Rhoswen said, pointing Arthion out among the rows of cots in the larger ward. Éomer nodded curtly and strode to speak with the Warden, all business-like bluster and commander's charm again.

There was little else she could do here in the houses – she was not trained in surgery, and could not even assist with those who were. For the first time in two days, Rhoswen began to feel tired again. _Now, now, none of that, _she chided herself, opening her eyes wide as if to remind herself she still had to remain awake. _Food for the men on the field, and beds, and comfort, as you have promised, and then sleep._

Every woman still in the city and capable of tending a fire was asked to the great kitchens of the King's house, and soon what had been an empty room was bustling again with life and sound. Innkeeps and ale wives rubbed shoulders with the last of Rhoswen's ladies, all of them content and busy with their work, trying to forget that some of them no longer had homes or husbands to return to. Thariel's friends worked with wild abandon clearing some of the great anterooms for men to sleep in, turning out the furniture and laying down fresh rushes and straw, sprinkled in with herbs to make the rooms smell fresh and inviting.

After what seemed an age, they finally trooped inside the city, the men of the Tower Guard and the last of the Rohirrim. Rhoswen could do nothing for the stabling of their horses, though someone told her they had created a paddock of sorts out on the plain, and they were happy enough there. The Rohirrim had ridden lightly enough, leaving their tents and trappings behind at the great camp of Dunharrow and sleeping under the stars. They were used to a rough life, but Rhoswen never saw men more gracious or thankful for the small comfort of a hot meal and a clean, smooth place to rest their heads, even if most of them were only sleeping under cloaks. The healers, too, had come, and plied their trade in between men eating and talking in tired half-animation.

As she walked here and there, she heard of the bodies out on the plain. Death had spared no noble house that day –Théoden King of the Riddermark was dead, and many of his housecarls around him. Hirluin would not return to Pinnath Gelin, nor would the tall and dark Halbarad, a friend of Aragorn's who had ridden from the north to aid him, ever walk the green fields of Gondor with his friend and king. Many of the great lords of the Rohirrim were dead also, and laid alongside their Gondorian comrades in rest, never to return to the fields and mountains of their youth.

Walking from room to room, Rhoswen surveyed the work, rebuking gently a few of Thariel's friends who seemed set on a little more flirting than was seemly after a battle and smiling when she saw Thariel doing much the same to another girl. _What changes a few months bring,_ she thought to herself, smiling at the young woman as she went past with a determined look on her face.

All seemed well here – and Rhoswen could scarcely keep her eyes open any longer. After seeing that some of the older women like Thariel's mother Luineth had their daughters well in hand, she let herself climb up to her own bedroom_. I should wait up for Boromir,_ she thought to herself sleepily, her eyes closing fast, _He will want to speak with me._

But even love cannot master fatigue, and she fell asleep without bothering to change her clothes.

She did not hear the man stop in the corridor outside her room, nor the creaking of the door as he entered looking for her, nor the story he gave to the women in the outer room of how he had not had the time to see her until now. She did not hear Faeldes tell Boromir with censure that she was resting, and could not see him, and she did not see the look of sorrow that crossed his face as he was told this, and the look of resignation that followed it.

* * *

Well, there you are, you hopeless romantics. He made it back. I had a lot of debates with myself about where to end this chapter, and try as I might, I couldn't bring myself to cut off just where he got back. It was too sappy that way - and the rest of the chapter didn't work on its own without the action in front of it. Life doesn't stop for the important stuff - it just keeps on rolling. Writing this chapter was a bit of a marathon for me - it's not easy toying with your characters affections and emotions for a few hours without feeling the effects yourself.

About the epigraphs for these chapters: I went on an Iliad kick and read nothing but Trojan War novelizations for a week solid while I was writing this. They seemed appropriate.

Oh, by the way, today (publishing day, that is, not the day you're reading this) is my birthday. Spare a review for a girl without any plans today?


	29. Chapter 29

Chapter 29

I saw my Lady weep,

And Sorrow proud to be advanced so

In those fair eyes, where all perfections keep;

Her face was full of woe,

But such a woe (believe me) as wins more hearts

Than mirth can do, with her enticing parts.

-anonymous

* * *

Light peeked through the curtains of the bed-hangings, and Rhoswen slowly woke up, rolling over and finding a knot pressing into her thigh. She sat up, feeling at it, and pulling away a wad of fabric from her apron pocket.

_It's morning. I've been asleep. I fell asleep in my work clothes. I was so tired yesterday!_

She looked at the fabric (dirty, stained green, probably from an herbal bottle) and at her fingers (a little red, rimmed with dirt.)

_There was a battle, yesterday. It's over now. There was blood on my hands. I washed them. We made dinner for a thousand men, and there was dirt on the vegetables. There were so many men in the city!_

_And Boromir is alive_, she remembered finally, sitting up all the way and pushing her bolsters behind her.

"Lady?" someone said in a very small voice. Rhoswen looked around, dazed for a moment, and pulled back the bedhangings. It was one of the healers of the Houses, but Rhoswen could not remember her name. "Lady, I was bidden to find you by your brother," the woman said, her voice low, mindful of the other ladies sleeping in Rhoswen's chamber, surrounding her bed like little islands of sleeping bodies. They were tired. Let them sleep.

"Who, Erun?" Rhoswen asked, shaking herself awake as best she could and then, as her body remembered the strains of the last week or so, followed the healer out into the hallway, stretching her back as she went.

"I do not know, Lady," the healer confessed. "He asked only for the Lady Rhoswen, saying he was your brother, and did not give his name. I did not know his face."

One of her other brothers, then – Erun was well known in the city. She might ask about his hair, but that would not have mattered. News was news, whether from one mouth or another.

He was waiting for them deep in the Houses, sitting down with a look of abject fatigue on his face, his eyes and thoughts far away. The healer touched his shoulder gently, as if to awaken him, and he started for a moment, standing up when he saw her companion.

"Erufailon," Rhoswen said, recognizing her second-eldest brother through the grime that streaked his face. "How sad a time we live in when we must meet again under stars such as these."

Her older brother looked as if he were about to smile, but his expression was strangely twisted, his face tight against some unseen tide. "Little sister, I have grievous news for you," her brother said softly, taking her hand in his own gauntleted one and taking her deeper into the houses, to the mortuary. He stopped and stepped into one of the smaller rooms, laying his hand on the corner of a stone slab as if to say, 'This is the place.'

Rhoswen closed her eyes, tears pricking at their corners, and prayed. Pulling back the sheet on the stone slab closest to them, she struggled for a moment and bit back a sob – her father's face stared at the ceiling, no longer smiling, no longer stern, only silent and chill.

"It was the end of his time," she managed, feeling her eyes well up with tears.

"I have not said all I came here to tell you," her brother said, pausing for a moment and pulling back the other sheet. Rhoswen could maintain her silence no longer, and sobbed.

The other man was Lucan.

"Where is Erun?" she asked quickly, before her tears overcame her, grabbing the edge of the stone tablet where the two lay before she collapsed. "Where is Carnil? Have they been told? Do they know?"

"Carnil is coming in from the battlefield, and Erun is with him," Erufailon said. "They were camping on the plain overnight – but they have both been told. They will come when they can to sit the watch with us."

Rhoswen was glad of her brother's company, silent and stoic though it might have been. It would have been too terrible for words to sit the watch alone knowing her family had been reduced forever by two members. She had known that one of them would die, or that all of them would die. War was a young man's place, and Lucan had known that. _But oh, Papa, did it have to be you as well? _she thought to herself softly, looking at her father's face. He had come for her, just for her, and all that she stood to inherit and rule. _You should have died at home in bed with your sons around you, not here in Minas Tirith, with a sword in your hand._

And then, a thought even more terrible_ – Did you have to die so that I might have Boromir? Are the gods really so cruel as that?_

The vastness of the day was never far from her thoughts, but the fact that there could be, would be, more dead and dying men beyond the four walls of the mortuary room where her father and brother lay seemed to dampen the thought, drive it from her mind. All that mattered now to her was in this room. She could not say how long she sat staring at her father's face, or how to sort through her emotions. Everything seemed a tangled mess.

She did not immediately see her brothers as they came in from the battlefield, but they told her of their presence the best way they knew how – a gentle hand on her shoulder, a short kiss on her head as one might give a child to comfort them, gestures practiced during a lifetime of being older brothers.

"Carnil, why did you let him come? He should have been at home! Could you not have left him to watch the women and the flocks?" She searched her eldest brother's face for some sign of – of something! Remorse, guilt, fear – and they were all there in multitudes.

"He was frightened for you, Rhos," Carnil replied. " He never stopped worrying after Boromir left the City, and when we had news of his death, he worried still more. He would not think of leaving you here after that. He meant to bring you home, if he could do nothing else here."

_Home._ "His shrouds are still at home in Anfalas," Rhoswen realized, her voice dry from disuse. "We will have nothing to bury him with."

"No," Carnil said again, and Rhoswen turned to look at her brother in frightened surprise. "He bade me bring them," the heir of Anfalas told his brothers, glancing at his father as if expecting censure. "He would not leave without them, and he made me swear to keep it secret from you."

"He brought…" Erun was stunned, staring at his father with something like hatred in his eyes. Rhoswen felt it, too. _He knew he was going to die, and still he came!_

"He knew his age, and what that meant," Carnil said stonily. "He asked for one last battle, and one battle he was given. Let us not grudge him that." He swallowed, looking for a moment like a man with a terrible burden. "It was the end of his time."

It was hard to swallow, but swallow it they did, waiting as Carnil's squire came back with the shroud, wrapped in coarse, gray linen to protect it on the journey. Unrolling the burial clothes, Rhoswen could not help but gasp. Such cloth, and such color! This was easily one of the most costly things her father had ever owned.

"Twenty years they have been packed away, and yet they still look new," Erun observed, running his fingers over the weave of the silk, imported long ago and worked with the golden ram of Anfalas, one last battle flag to drape over Golasgil's body.

"Twenty years…" Rhoswen repeated, her heart bottoming out again. "H-h-he had them made when Mama died." _Twenty years since my mother died. Since I was born._ Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carnil glaring daggers at his youngest brother.

Now that she saw them again, she remembered seeing them once before, inside a chest in the corner of the great bedroom he had shared with her mother, the room that always seemed strangely empty without any womenfolk to occupy it. It had been built to house the woman's running of a castle, and should have been filled with ladies, maids, work and leisure, and yet saw none of that while Rhoswen had lived there. She had played there, from time to time, and occasionally one of the senior maidservants would air out the chests of Lady Renneth's clothes, replacing herbs but never removing anything from storage. But when she had asked to help and opened one chest to find the beautiful silk, her father, working in a farther corner of the room, had flown at her, stuffing the silk back into the chest and chastising her for going where she did not belong, his eyes full of tears.

"All men must die," Erun reminded her, wrapping his arms around her and repeating what she had often repeated to herself in the last weeks. "And all women too. He knew what he wanted, Rhos, and he wanted you – wanted all of us – to have the chance to be happy."

"That was what Mama wanted, too," Carnil said gently, looking for a moment at his younger brother. "She would have been proud of us," He added, looking at his sister as if to censure her before she excluded herself from her brother's pronouncement.

Erufailon, always the quiet one of the five of them, suddenly choked out a laugh. "Do you remember when Lucan's dog died?" He asked, looking around at his brothers, evidently a scene from their childhood he hoped they would remember.

"Nurse sewed a shroud for him," Erun added, nodding and smiling at his brother's lifeless face. "He insisted we have a funeral for it – grave and everything. And he tracked mud all over the floor when he was done digging! He loved that dog. Mangy thing."

They were all nodding now, and even Rhoswen was remembering something. "I gathered flowers and threw them on the grave. But you didn't like it. I don't remember why. You made me cry," she said, looking at her brothers for support.

"You gathered weeds and stinging nettle," Carnil reminded her. "You were crying because your hands hurt and Erun called you stupid and you couldn't understand why."

They all had a laugh about that for a moment, passing the rest of their vigil in much the same fashion, sharing stories from their childhood that most of them had all but forgotten and remembering the dead, both those before them and those gone before to the Halls of Mandos. Stories of their father, but also their mother, who Rhoswen had never known, and their grandparents, who were dim even to Erun, who had been eight or nine when the last one died. Rhoswen did not tell all her stories, choosing to keep those from their time in Dol Amroth a secret, too many of them involving her brother's love for a lady beyond his station.

_Lottie._ Her heart ached when she remembered Lothiriel for the first time in a long while. _Oh, Lottie, what will I say when I see you again? Who will tell you of this but me?_ But she spoke of their hunts, and the playfulness of the Swan Knights whose company Lucan had kept, and of how Lucan had shared his hawk, hoping her brother's spirit would forgive her if she did not share what that moment had taught her about him, that he was in love with his liege lord's daughter.

When the healers came in to replace the tapers, it was time to begin the women's work, meant for mothers and daughters alone. Carnil and Erufalion withdrew to see to their other fallen men, but Erun remained, refusing to let his sister go at the bodies alone. Together they undressed the two men and washed them in fragrant oils, finally wrapping them in their winding sheets. Rhoswen's hands still moved delicately over their wounds, her touch still tuned to patients who could still feel pain.

"They should be buried in Anfalas, next to Mother," Rhoswen said, wiping her hands to free them of the cloying oil. That, too, was a dim memory, a dark crypt in the hills, with winding passages and graven faces. "But we have not time."

"They will rest in the vaults of the Stewards, for the time being," one servant said solemnly from the door, causing both Erun and Rhoswen to turn suddenly, surprised that anyone should be there. "The Lord Boromir has asked it be done."

_Boromir_. It had been so long since she had seen him that Rhoswen had nearly forgotten. _He is alive, and my father and brother are dead._

"He is in council,," the healer said, as if answering her question. "He was sorry he could not stay longer. He only stopped here for a moment, to see you, and when we told him where you were he asked us not to disturb you, and gave the instructions as I have said. But food has been sent to the Lord Boromir's rooms, my lady, and they have called for more tapers there as well."

"They?" Rhoswen asked quickly, wondering who else might be with her betrothed.

"The Lord Imrahil, and the Lord Eomer, and many others of the Rohirrim, and Mithrandir."

Rhoswen nodded, glancing behind her at the bodies on their cold marble slabs. _That is no idle fireside conversation, _she thought to herself._ That is a council of war._

Instinctively her gaze went east, tears pricking at her eyes before she realized where it was she looked. _Will that place take everything I love?_

The sun was heavy on her shoulders as she went back into the part of the houses reserved for the living, but her world suddenly seemed cold again.

* * *

Meetings, and councils, and lists, lists, lists. If there was one thing Boromir hated about soldiering, it was lists. Lists of supplies, lists of dead and wounded men, weapons and armor and still more lists to tell him what he had lists of. It was enough to drive any but the most patient quartermasters mad with boredom, and the Captain-Heir, even on his best days, was not what a man could call patient.

He had longed to be home with the safety of his army before they marched to Mordor, and he had gotten his wish. Now, remembering the ease of following only eight other people up mountains and down roads, Boromir almost wished that Aragorn had chosen a different road for them.

Almost.

In his youth, perhaps, he would have appreciated a wild, glory-filled run into the fiery destruction that awaited them in Mordor, but Boromir was in his middle age now, and he was feeling it. The lessons of a lifetime were finally coming to bear. And there was Rhoswen to think about, too. That was one lesson he had not considered until very recently. _A battle's only filled with glory if there's someone around to remember it. _

Men would remember the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, at least, even if it was only for the brief breath before the plunge into Mordor. _Will any voice ever sing of what we do in Mordor_? Boromir wondered to himself. _Will there be any voices left?_

Boromir held a hand in front of his eyes and sighed. It had seemed like he had not stopped working since he arrived back in the city, between his duties with the army's preparations to march and his newly acquired duties as the Steward. Five days, his uncle had judged last night during their councils, to march their men to Mordor, and there was little time to waste before that. And in all of this he had not had time with Rhoswen. _And she, poor woman, has made time for me,_ Boromir remembered. He was beginning to see that for some things in Minas Tirith it was common practice to seek out his Lady. Lodging and quartering troops were one, medicines and the affairs of the Houses of Healing another. _It seems that she's in everything these days! I can't ask for help with something but I hear another person say, 'Yes, the Lady saw to that.' It is fair wonderous, to be honest. _

Yet for all he heard of her, she was seldom seen, a benevolent ghost with ears to every wall. _Even ladies must eat, surely, and sleep, and take time to mourn, _Boromir thought to himself._ Or will she not allow herself even that small kindness? _No, that was unfair, he knew she would spend time in mourning. And who would not, with a brother and a father dead? That news had reached him yesterday. She had taken the news in the morning, prepared their bodies for burial and spun back into the great whirl of a city at war in the afternoon. _It should not be enough to send a servant with my regrets. I should be there with her._

Boromir glanced at the work at hand and sighed. This would not do; his mind could take no more of this shuffling and filing, and he had just added five and five to make eleven. He took one final look at his papers and passed them off to one of his clerks. The main body of the work was done – let the secretaries handle the rest. Perhaps he would succeed at finding Rhoswen where his servants had not – he was beginning to think they were obeying some order of hers not to disturb her rather than his to seek her out.

He tried the Houses of Healing – they had not seen her. The kitchens? She had sent her instructions through the boy Bergil. Her own rooms? Even Maireth could not tell him, though she promised him (sincerely, he thought, Maireth was always a little protective of Rhoswen) that if she were seen, she would send for him immediately. Boromir's ideas, and his already threadbare patience, were wearing thin.

"Cousin, you look lost," an unfamiliar voice said with an amused tone. "Misplaced something? Battalion of detachments, siege engine, five thousand swords?"

It was his cousin, Amrothos. It had been nearly ten years since he'd seen any of his relations in Dol Amroth, and Amrothos and Lottie, the youngest of them, had been just twelve and ten when he'd last visited. When Imrahil had made his introductions, Boromir marveled that the little boy that he remembered had gotten tall enough to trade in his boy's short sword for a true hand-and-half blade of the Swan Knights, but the little jokester who had hidden frogs in his sister's room had lost none of his merriment. Boromir had to at least smile at the thought of losing an entire siege engine.

"My betrothed, as it happens," he replied, the smile lost again to weariness. "Have you seen her?"

"Now, that's a chase! 'Tarry me not, a prince's I am, and wild for to hold, though I seem tame.'" Amrothos quoted grandly. "They wrote poems about her, in Dol Amroth, you know, that was one of them. That's _your_ Lady, cousin. Wild to hold. I've not seen her since yesterday," He said sadly, as if he personally regretted not being informed of her whereabouts. "You've tried the Houses, the kitchens? Storage cupboards?" Boromir nodded to all of these things. "Her garden?"

Gods in heaven, could he be so blind? "My thanks, cousin!" he said over his shoulder, nearly running off in the direction of his mother's garden, Rhoswen's garden now, a little refuge away from the storm of the city. As he neared the door, he paused for a moment, recapturing his wind in long, deep breaths.

And in between the heavy beating of his heart he heard a woman crying.

The door was loose in its lock, as if she had only half-heartedly shut it, the hinges themselves crying on their pins as he swung it open into the garden. The sobs stopped suddenly at the sound, afraid of being watched, and as Boromir came through the deep recess of the doorway he saw Rhoswen scrubbing unsuccessfully at her eyes with a corner of her gown. The tears might be gone, but her face was still red from weeping, and it broke his heart a little to see her so.

"Boromir!" She nearly jumped from her seat on the bench, her face turned away from him, wiping her eyes, composing her dress. Her voice was quick, full of surprise and what sounded terribly like fear.

"Were you expecting another?" he asked, laughing a little at the thought and then feeling cruel after the words were out of his mouth. He knew her, and she would not abandon him so lightly. _But what is that that she fears? Is it me?_

"No, no," she said again quickly, sitting back down again and then, with a small gesture, inviting him to the seat opposite. He moved slowly to take the bench, studying her as he went, trying, after so many months in the company of men, to remember the little he knew of women's ways. She seemed unsure of herself, her eyes darting back and forth, never meeting his for more than a second until he sat down, when she seemed to force herself to keep her eyes with his. Her fingers were knit tightly in her lap, her shoulders stiff.

"I have seen very little of you," Boromir said finally, after a long, drawn silence. "I scarcely knew a person could keep as busy as you do!"

"There is much that requires my attention," She responded, but her voice was still distant from him, as though she were thinking about something else rather than the words she spoke. Her eyes dropped to her hands, and did not return to his.

Somewhere in the city below there were the sounds of work, a city rebuilding itself, and Boromir wished, ardently, that someone might come and fix whatever breach had come between him and his lady. It occurred to him now that the Rhoswen who had kept his mind company all these many months might have been a dream of his, built on the slim memories of a woman who had also had near seven months to change, and grow. But what was this growth? She was quiet now, quieter than she had ever been before. Did her father's death do this to her?

"Are we to be strangers again, you and I?" He finally asked desperately, and something in his voice made her turn her face up again. "I have not heard such silence from you since we first met. And I would not be so alone again."

Her lips trembled, and her eyes glistened, and finally she sprang up from her seat, going, not to his arms, as he had prayed she would do, but a distance down the path, not so far away that he could not hear her crying again. His first instinct was to go to her, but she pushed him away, shaking her head and crying uncontrollably as she stumbled over the hem of her dress, half-deranged by grief. A second time he tried, and failed, but by the second escape she was well and truly crying again, and she could not see her path. Instead of resisting him she pummeled him, swiping her fists ineffectually at his chest and arms, letting loose some great monster inside of her. "You were alone?" she howled at him, incredulous. "They told me you were _dead_! What worse _alone_ is there?"

And Boromir – bewildered, frightened – let her hit him, over and over and over again, until the monster wore itself out and the blows were reduced to glancing swipes, and she hung in his arms, tired and defeated. "I thought you would not come back," she said again, not daring to look at him, a little shame in the way she hung her head but a little defiance, too. "I thought for so long about what I would say when you came back and they told me you would not, and I resigned myself to it. And now… none of it is true! A woman asks herself what she has done to deserve this."

"A woman could do nothing to deserve what I have done," Boromir said quickly. "I did it with no thought for you, and that was selfish beyond belief. And I must remember never to act so again."

"What _thought_ did you give to it?" she asked angrily, looking at him with desperate, red eyes, her emphasis on the word thought cutting at him.

The truth, now, she would take no less. "It was a feint of war," he said plainly. "My father's plans were slow to move – I thought my death might stir him in a way that words could not. Cut down by orcs in northern Rohan, so close to home I might have seen him again? I thought he would look for revenge. Clearly it moved him in a different way."

"And I have been here to take his grief," Rhoswen said bitterly. "And my own as well."

"I could not apologize enough for what I have done," he offered, studying her as she stood in the path before him, her anger still on a slow simmer.

"Nothing could be more true."

"Is your hate for me really that strong?" Boromir asked, stepping back a pace to study her, his mind suddenly cold to all else. Was that what this was? Hate?

"Hate?" Rhoswen sobbed like she did not know the word. "Hate? No, this is love! It claws at me and keeps me awake, and singes at my soul with its fire and heat. It makes me stronger and destroys me, and I cannot hold it in. Love so great and vast that it plays at being other things. Every day that went by I reminded myself that you would come back for me, and we would have the life I dreamed of, and every day, that vision grew a little less bright. Others reminded me that love could be bright and beautiful, and the world could do me no wrong while I was strong in it, and strong in my love for you, and all that that love could make me accomplish. Now you ask me to take that love, and those hopes, back, and then freely give them up again, for certain this time. I have been selfish for it," she said pitilessly, her back still turned towards him, a small shiver of sobbing still present in her voice.

"Selfish?" Boromir leaned forward, suddenly defensive.

"Every desire but yours, my lord, I have heard and answered," she countered, and looked at him with shame in her eyes. "I have avoided you these past days - studiously avoided you."

So it was true, she had bribed the servants to keep him away from her. He stared at her, begging her to tell him without that he should have to ask the question in his heart, _Why, why, why?_ and she looked at him as if to say, _Any question but that one_. But he did not give up his ground, and she cast around her eyes a moment, looking up to the sky with something like begging in her gaze. "I have you back – impossibly, wonderfully back – and now I must let you leave again. I thought…I thought it would be easier, for me, if we did not see each other. If I did not see you."

He must have stared dreadfully, because she looked heavenward for a moment again, searching for an answer to his question that would not make her cry again. "My father and brother are dead, Boromir, and soon you will all join them! All these men whom I have tended and nursed, all these boys who will go because their fathers are no longer alive to stop them! And you will lead them. And you will surely not come back." Her eyes fixed on him, pleading with him to see her side of the story, terrible as it seemed to her.

"Is my death so certain?" Boromir wondered aloud.

"Could I be so blessed twice?" Rhoswen asked forlornly. "The gods are not so kind as that!"

The Steward's son stared sadly at his betrothed, standing in the garden path looking melancholy enough to break his heart. It was true – he was leaving again. That he could not deny or refuse.

"I should have taken you aside when first we came back, and told you all," he considered, coming slowly down the garden path to join her, taking her hands in his own and slowly urging her eyes back up to his. "I should have told you my plans sooner, rather than that you hear them from others. It is too late for that now, and I cannot change what I have done. I have not time enough for all the stories I should tell you. But I do not think we should carelessly throw away what time we have left. I am sorry for the harm I have done you – bitterly sorry, and my regret haunts me openly now as it has not before."

"I know… a little of what it is like to be alone," he continued, remembering many, many dark nights when shades far darker than Rhoswen's stares now made it hard for him to sleep, and he felt that no one – no one! – could help him. "I would not be so alone again for all the world – and I would not have you be so, either, while it was in my power to change that. Will you endure a kiss and a pair of warm arms that love you and all the solace I can offer? For a little while? For me?"

She looked ready to refuse, but she came readily to him. "Yes, I can do that. And I would be most grateful for it." She sank against him, broken down again, most of her large sobs gone, replaced by little quivering sighs that slowly quieted into breathing. "I feel warm and safe here," she said after a little while. "I have missed this terribly."

"I feel warm and safe here, too," Boromir offered gently, and Rhoswen smiled a little at the thought of her protecting him from the waves of the world. Her smile warmed him better than the choicest wine. "And I would not go if the need were not very, very great indeed."

"But why go now, when so many have already died? What can ten thousand men do against the might of Mordor?"

"We have…a weapon now, that we have not possessed in an age. It may turn the tide for us." Yes, the sword of Elendil, the blade of righteous victory over evil, and the son of Elendil to wield it, the sword and the blood that had done so much in long ages past to rid the world of men of -

"The Ring?" She said it simply, as if she did not know its true power, and the naiveté with which she named it made his blood run like ice. _Oh, gods, how does she know of that here?_

The words cut him like a knife, and Rhoswen felt it; she pulled back from him, studying his face with surprise written clearly on her own. It had been so long since he had felt it pull at him and his heart, and he heard the echo of that call as she named it, and it filled him with cold fear. He had hoped, foolishly, that they need never speak of it again – or at least, that he would not have to tell Rhoswen about his own great failing. A moment to master it was all he needed, but it was enough to set Rhoswen on her guard.

"Yes," he said finally. "The Ring of Power." For that was a weapon, too, and they would use it against its maker. That was the reason the King was coming again. That was the reason for…for all of this.

"Faramir told me of it," she said, her voice careful, watching him closely now. "He said that it corrupted men. He said it drove them mad."

"Madness would be preferable," Boromir said grimly. "It lets you keep your mind, and uses it against you. It tempts you, turns your thoughts to power. It uses all you love to undermine your will, promises that the world will kill and keep everything you hold dear if you do not listen to its schemes for domination. It called to me – and I proved myself weak to its charms. Better men than me prevailed against it."

_Better men like Aragorn_, his mind added, making no move to hide the disappointment in his face. _Let her see me as she has not seen me – let her see a man betrayed by his own want of power. Let her see, and let me be ashamed for it._

"Who is the ranger who healed Faramir?" she asked suddenly, as if she could see the road his mind took. "Why do you treat him with such deference?" _Is he your better man_? she seemed to ask.

_This question you cannot hide from_. "He is the last of a bloodline reaching all the way back to Isildur."

"The king." She repeated the words with unbelief, and he could see the same story playing behind her eyes that had played behind his at the house of Elrond – an unkempt man, a Ranger from the North, could not be what Boromir's words made him. She looked at him with questions still in her eyes."He is the King."

"And he has returned to Gondor. Isildur had four sons," Boromir said, repeating the words he had heard so many times in so many lessons, "And all but one were killed when Isildur perished. The youngest son, Valendil, was in Rivendell, far in the north, when his father died, and he, in his time, became King in the North. That Kingdom broke, and broke again, but the line remained, passing into obscurity, a band of Rangers who kept to the North. Aragorn's father was one of those Rangers, the Dunedain, the followers of the Broken Kingdoms of Valendil's descendents. His childhood was spent among the elves, his warrior's years…all over this Middle Earth."

"And that makes him king?" Rhoswen asked plaintively. Were she another woman he might have rebuked her, but there was nothing selfish in her voice, nothing self-preserving. She did not ask out of a desire to see herself wear a crown, that was not in her. No, she was concerned for …for him, it seemed.

"Yes," Boromir assured her. "That makes him king."

"And you trust him with your soldiers' lives? With your life?"

"I would trust him with anything precious to me," Boromir said sincerely. "He has lead great armies and little war bands, has fought from horse and on foot, stayed firm in his fortress and ridden out against the enemy when needful, and he knows more of war than I ever will. And he is my friend, for whatever that gives him in your eyes. Though I have not always been a friend to him," he added ruefully.

"Does your friend know your city as you do? Can he lead these people who trust you and your judgement so utterly?"

"Gondor has had no king for many ages of men," Boromir said. "But it sorely needs one now, and if my people trust me as you say they do, then when they see me place my trust with Aragorn, their trust will go there, too."

Rhoswen nodded, taking all of this in. But something in her face was still concerned, still holding back some reserve of fear and doubt. "Do you worry for the Stewardship, Rhos, for me? I do not want that power – I have never wanted it. I would have always been content to serve another lord and master – and now my master comes, and I must heed his call, as all my grandfathers were asked to. My father would not do it," he said coldly. "But my father was a fool in pride, and I will not allow the same foolishness to beggar me of sense." He looked at Rhoswen, and smiled to see her look of thoughtful surprise. "Did you not tell me once you would love me if I were the poorest farmer and our house the lowest crofter's cottage?"

"I did," Rhoswen admitted, and looking at him, she smiled, and sighed heavily. "And I will hold to that. If he is your king, he is my king, too, and his commands are my happy task. Is that not the deal all women strike when they marry knights and kings – that one day war will call you, and it will not let you return? At least we have had this," she said softly, gesturing around the garden with resignation. "Some men do not have the luxury of last good-byes." And though she said it to him, her mind, he could see, was far away again.

"I was sorry to hear of your father, and your brother Lucan," Boromir said quietly, gazing at Rhoswen intently. "I never had a chance to meet them."

"My father is very much like Carnil, and Carnil you shall meet," Rhoswen promised heavily. "He is leading my father's companies now, as Lord of Anfalas."

"I must meet all your brothers," Boromir realized. "Although if they are both like Erun, I must admit I am rather terrified."

Rhoswen remembered for a moment the scene she had fallen upon when she learned of Boromir's return, the Great Hall and the commanders, with her brother in among them smiling like a fool. "Was he very hard on you when he saw you back?" she asked with sympathetic interest.

"He said he would leave that to you," Boromir related, and Rhoswen allowed herself a little laugh, drawing herself in closer to him again and closing her eyes with a sigh. Boromir watched her for a moment and let his eyes close, too, feeling the weak sun on his face and smelling the herbs that Rhoswen had washed her hair with. The mind can make up many things, but the weight of a woman pressed against your side, the way she smells and feels and breathes, all those are lost in memories.

"So, this is to be our end," she said finally, putting words with what Boromir was thinking. "Angry words in a garden in mid-afternoon."

"Now, do not say that," Boromir chided her gently. "There is still the feast, tonight, and…tomorrow, before we leave. And they have not all been angry words. There have been some fine blows, and very fine kisses as well." He lightly kissed her forehead and drew her gaze back up to his face. "You will be at the feast, won't you?"

"I am the mistress of this city, and their hostess. It would be uncouth not to attend. I will make sure you have clothes appropriate for it laid out in your room; it will not do to have the Steward of the city come in his working tunic," she said with a weak attempt at humor, brushing off his shoulders and adjusting the seams of his surcoat.

"Can something be found for Aragorn as well? Armor will be easy, for tomorrow when we march, but if a man will be king, he must look the part when he is at feast as well."

Rhoswen nodded. "Something will be found," she promised. For a few moments, there was only tense, wary silence. "I should go see that the kitchens are on task," she remembered, rising from the bench. "We have much to do in a scarce few hours."

"Rhoswen," Boromir called out to her before she touched the lock. "Have you forgiven me?"

She looked at him curiously, studying something inside herself for a moment. "I do not know, my lord," she said finally, leaving him to wonder what she meant by that.

* * *

It was quiet in Rhoswen's rooms, and dark, but that did not prevent Thariel from looking there for her mistress. She'd been gone nearly all morning, and everyone was at a loss to say where she had gone. Or if they did know (Maireth was a figure who sprang to mind) they weren't saying. But Thariel needed the Lady's opinion on something, and she wasn't going to rest until she got it, even if that meant searching inside every cupboard and barracksroom there was inside the King's House. She'd already interrupted a meeting of the Captains of the West and at least two back-room trysts, but that wasn't going to stop her.

"My lady?" she called into the relative darkness of Rhoswen's solar.

"I'm in here, Thariel," Rhoswen said softly from her bedroom. The younger woman sighed with joy, rounding the door and coming face to face with a strange sight – a room strewn with the contents of the coffers at the walls, as if Rhoswen was taking inventory.

"What is all this?" the adolescent asked, almost dumbstruck by the amount of material in the room.

"This chest was my mother's," Rhoswen said sadly, running her hand along the lid. "She brought it with her from the hill country when she married my father, and saved it for my dowry chest." She held up a string of topazes, winking in the sun. "This necklace was hers, too – her father was a great miner and crafter of gold, and he made this out of gems from his own land so that she could wear it on her wedding day. These are my sheets, my bolsters," she gestured around the room. "I started sewing them when I was ten years old. The oldest ones are in the bottom of the chest," she added, looking towards the box with something like amusement in her eyes. "I hope I never have to use those. Underneath them, at the very bottom, there's an embroidered panel for a wall-hanging that my mother made. She started when she was pregnant with my oldest brother, Carnil – she was convinced he'd be a girl, and it could be for her dowry chest. She didn't stop sewing it until she had her daughter. It's the finest thing I own, and I know so little about her from it, except that she was an exceptional seamstress. My own work's not half as fine." She glanced at the chest sadly, and then at an object close to where she sat on the floor – a wooden goblet, engraved beautifully around the outside with vines and leaves and roses.

"And here – here is the loving cup that Boromir had made for our wedding. We drank wine out of it at the Harvest Festival, and he kissed me with the scent of wine on my lips. It was the wildest thing I'd ever done," she remembered sadly. "All of it for my dowry – all of it gone to waste," she added despondently. "A lifetime of work lost."

"You speak as if you'll never see him again, Lady," Thariel said in confusion. "He's come back to you. He's safe."

"But he will not be for long. They are riding away– to Mordor, this time. As a diversion." She shook her head. "I wish I could ask him to stay, but that would be as pitiless to him as leaving is to me. Oh, Thariel, I wish you never say the things that have passed my lips this day! He is leaving, and I have been cruel to him!"

"If you have taught me anything, Lady, it is that words can be mended easier than actions," Thariel said tentatively. "You can always take back words, but the chance for actions seldom comes a second time."

Rhoswen gave a short, sparse laugh. "And what would you do, Thariel, if this were your lord whom you had offended?" she asked, her question sounding tired and worn. The younger woman considered this a moment.

"I'd show him what he was missing if he lost me," she responded suddenly with a bright decisiveness in her eyes. " I'd show him what he was fighting for. And the Lord Boromir would lose a queen with you, lady."

Rhoswen said nothing, reflecting on all of this.

"There's the feast tonight, if you need an excuse to be a queen," the teenager reminded her. "Didn't some of the great heroines of Lady Lottie's stories play the queen at their banquets so their knights could feel like kings?"

"Oh, but that is not really our kind of feast, Thariel. This is a funeral feast, to celebrate the dead. They tell me it is commonly done in Rohan, and their king has died – they will wish to grieve as best they know how."

"Then you will show them what they are coming back to," Thariel said triumphantly. "You will show them how to live for the living. Not dressed like that, though," she said, looking with such obvious teen-age disdain at Rhoswen's plain gray workdress that the older woman had to laugh and embrace Thariel. "You must go," Thariel said again. "It is what would happen if this were one of Lady Lottie's stories."

Rhoswen chuckled. "Then if you were writing this story, Thariel, what would your queen wear?"

Thariel stepped back from their embrace, looking around the room, silently appraising the room's contents, most of Rhoswen's wardrobe having joined her dowry on the floor. Her eyes fell on Rhoswen's wedding dress, but moved away again. And then her eyes lit up, and she grabbed her mistress's hand to pull her out of the room to parts unknown.

* * *

The kitchens were working so furiously that a man could not go anywhere in the city without smelling food. The city seemed to be righting itself, like a ship after a storm – the plain was cleared of debris and the bodies burned, and the sounds of laughter, and ringing stone began to be heard as the soldiers hurried to and fro collecting arrows from the fletchers, and newly sharpened swords from the smithies. The Rohirrim sat in tight circles re-painting their shields, some adding new designs that reflected their most recent victory, horses with orc-heads trampled underfoot and men with spears framed in bloody tusks.

And in the treasure rooms, Boromir searched and searched for the armor of the kings.

When an object has several centuries to become lost, the treasure-house keeper had told them, you can be certain it will be not be easy going to find it. Well, they had found all manner of things in the Treasure-houses, ancient swords and great ropes of jewels from across the seas, and crumbling books in eldritch tongues, but still they had not found the armor.

"There really is no need for this," Aragorn said, for what seemed like the ten-thousandth time to Boromir's ears. "I can fight just as well in a hauberk and mail as any man – better than any man in plate, if the truth be known."

"But you must have something!" Boromir objected, lifting up the lid of another dusty chest and coughing as he unleashed a tidal wave of dust. "Mordor must know what they are facing here! You must look the part of the king!"

Aragorn had to laugh. "Mordor already knows what marches towards them, Boromir – the palantir has told them that."

"Then if not for Mordor, for the men!" Boromir countered angrily. "Allow me that I have lead more armies than you, Aragorn," the Gondorian said dangerously after he had mastered his initial burst of temper. "Soldiers like to see their commander as a man apart – that he knows more than they do. And their King moreso! We have not had a king to lead an army in an age, Aragorn. Allow them the splendor of the kings of old as they have heard of in stories. It will give them hope."

"Will it?" Aragorn asked, picking up a helmet and brushing the dust from the crevices of the knotwork decorating its rim.

"It gave me hope, as a child. Why not a whole company of grown men? This is no mummer's play, Aragorn," Boromir stressed as gently as he could. "It is not a gilt-paper crown or a wooden sword that I am asking you to carry. They are real weapons, real symbols of power – power as we have not had in this country for time out of mind! Once the sight of the Stewards riding through the town with their white rod of state and the Great Horn would have been enough to move them to courage. But the Great horn is severed," Boromir said sadly. "And the Stewards have lost their way. You already have the Sword of Elendil – let me not see if I can bring you Elendil's armor, too."

There was a distant clatter in another corner of the treasure room, and both men turned towards the sound. What emerged from behind the stacks of treaties and gilded instruments of state was not the treasure-house keeper, but Rhoswen, her arms filled with something heavy wrapped in gray cloth. She looked surprised to have found the two men for a moment, but then a sort of queenly hauteur came back into her face, and she bowed to the two men in greeting as if whatever business brought her here was not to be questioned.

"Lord Aragorn, Boromir. I did not know your lordships were here, or I would have announced myself sooner. We are just leaving."

"Rhoswen, why are you here?" Boromir asked, none too gently.

His lady gave him a patient, albeit cool, look. "My business here is my own, my Lord; you need not concern yourself. I have just passed some rather remarkable plate armor in the far corner, there – I know that is what _you_ are looking for here."

She looked behind her at the young lady who had just caught up her, her arms also full, and continued out.

"Perhaps she has come for armor, too," Aragorn said with a smile, watching the women leave.

Boromir acknowledged warily with a half-felt nod, turning to go in the direction she had pointed them. What business did Rhoswen have in the treasure rooms? Perhaps it was as Aragorn had said – perhaps she was looking for some kind of armor.

_Though what armor does a woman behind high walls need_? He wondered to himself.

* * *

I'm not entirely satisfied with the way this chapter turned out, but it went through four different drafts (which is three more drafts than most chapters usually get) so I'm not sure it will get any better. The next chapter is almost done, so hopefully there shouldn't be too long of a pause in between. I started taking an online course in Museum Studies in October, so my free time was kind of eaten by homework and visiting museums.

Reviews are always nice. :D


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30

_What sort of man is coming_

_To lie between your feet?_

_What matter, we are but women._

_Wash; make your body sweet;_

_I have cupboards of dried fragrance._

_I can strew upon the sheet._

_-The Lady's Second Song, William Butler Yeats_

* * *

"A little better than eating your hard bread and broth on cold ground, is it not, Lord Eomer?" Prince Imrahil asked as the commanders took their places at the high table inside Minas Tirith's Great Hall.

"It was kind of the Lady Rhoswen to plan this for us," the new King of the Rohirrim said, glancing with little-hidden amazement that a party of this magnitude could be planned so quickly. Long tables and many hundreds of benches lined the hall leading up to the high table, where a white cloth was spread to set off the rich goblets and plates laid out for the benefit of the captains of the West. The rest of the company would dine off of wood-hard trenchers and horn cups, with no cloth beneath, as lesser lords in lesser halls did. But all would be able to say they had tasted of Minas Tirith's hospitality, and that was no small accomplishment.

"An army marches on its stomach," Imrahil said plainly. "Better that ours be full." He turned to look at his nephew, just taking his seat in a splendid black surcoat with the white tree plainly picked out in silver thread. "Will your lady join us, Boromir? It is the fruits of her labor, I understand, that we are about to partake of."

"In truth, Uncle, I do not know," Boromir said flatly, taking his seat and looking closely around the room as if she might be in the shadows where he would not, at first glance, see. "We quarreled, earlier," he said quietly to his uncle. "Or rather, she acquainted me with my neglect."

"And you left things badly?" Imrahil asked, studying his nephew quietly.

"She said she did not know if she could forgive me for what I had done," the newly minted Steward related heavily. His uncle nodded.

"Give her time to think, Boromir. Love marches on its own time – and it is usually not to the beat of the war-drum. See her after dinner tonight, if it still vexes you."

Boromir was about to reply that his uncle's idea sounded reasonable, if a little disobliging in the short term, when a loud sounding of silver trumpets burst into the hall. Heads turned towards the far doors, men and boys alike wondering at what, or who, would merit the entrance notes traditionally reserved for the family of the Steward, who anyone could see were already in attendance.

Yet someone was there, silhouetted strangely by the light of the hall, surrounded by an unearthly golden halo that seemed to follow them into the hall.

"Who is that?" Éomer asked, looking down the table at a string of equally dumbfounded faces, each one staring in amazement at the golden vision walking slowly towards them. Boromir's mouth dropped open a little.

"It is Rhoswen."

The future stewardess had outdone herself - gone were the floury apron and scarf of earlier days, replaced now with a treasure of unknown origin, a tall gold diadem from some long-ago Numenorean horde, trailing long lappets of pearls over her shoulders. Over a dress of some wheaten-colored cloth she wore a heavy, high-collared golden robe, some ancient token of friendship from one queen to another. Every step she took towards the dais sparkled in the lamplight, the gems inlaid in the robe and crown casting otherworldly shadows on the walls.

_She looks like a queen,_ Boromir thought to himself, standing as he watched Rhoswen enter the hall with a tall golden goblet in her hands. _More than a queen, even - a goddess incarnate_. Everyone was silent, waiting for her to pass, walking regally up to the high table with her golden, glimmering load.

The goblet, they could now see, was brim-full - the whole length of the hall she had walked with this heavy object and not spilled a drop of it. They had not planned this bit of ceremony, but Boromir knew it from younger days, remembering dimly when his mother would carry in a chalice of wine to begin dinners of state. It was customary that the cup should go to the man of highest rank first - that was Imrahil, as the eldest of the commanders and the Prince of Dol Amroth, then after him to Éomer, as a visiting king-elect, and then to Boromir, the acting Steward. Yet Rhoswen did not bring the cup to any of them. Instead, she went to Aragorn, holding the goblet aloft to him.

"My lord, will you not drink this cup with me?" She asked, her voice loud and clear in the silence of the stunned hall. Aragorn, rising from his seat, looked amazed for moment and only haltingly took the cup from her, drinking only a little and then passing it to the man next to him, Éomer, who raised it, in the manner of his people, in a toast to the victorious dead. The Rohirrim seated in the hall raised their cups in unison with his and saluted with a single word in wild-sounding Rohirric. And on the cup went.

"She is clever, that wife of yours," Imrahil said softly to Boromir after the cup had passed them both, going down the long line of commanders at the table, watched carefully by Rhoswen. "The men know what that cup means. The king drinks first."

"She has many talents," Boromir replied, watching the glittering, gleaming vision come to rest next to him, standing nearby the empty chair along the front table. "I am sure I do not know half of them."

She met his eyes for just a moment, and a small smile stole across her solemn face. As she shifted her arm a little, lifting up the hem of her dress that she might sit down, Boromir could see that her outer robe was not simply embroidered in golden thread, but covered, hem to collar, in little golden plates, each beaten out in grand designs. _So, this is her armor_, he thought to himself, watching her hand rest on his for a moment and seeing, with some amazement, that the only ring she was wearing was a simple circlet set with beryl. His ring. Her fingers suddenly seemed warm on the back of his hand.

But they moved quickly, her robe letting off a little bell-like peal as she raised her hands to call in the dinner. And what a dinner! The robe would have been enough to out-do the grandest parties Boromir had ever seen, but for a meal thrown together for an army in haste to leave, this left them behind.

"You will forgive me, my lord Eomer," Rhoswen said down the table as their cups were filled again, the wine stewards leading in a long line of servitors with dishes of every description. "But I have taken the liberty of watering the wine. I do it out of necessity, not disrespect for the dead. I understand you breach your best casks for the celebrations of kings. We have toasted with a very fine red from the vales of Lamedon, but the rest of what we shall drink tonight is not nearly as rare, or strong."

"My uncle liked Gondorian wine, my lady. He would have appreciated the gesture, and the necessities of battle," Éomer returned, raising his cup in toast to his hostess, a gesture she returned.

To the rest of the men, she must have looked like a vision, but to Boromir, sitting so close, began to see as he cut her meat and filled her cup, that there were times when she appeared to be shaking in fear, her smile not so sure as she wanted it to be.

"A little honeyed cake, my lord?" she asked, breaking a piece from the plate beside her. It was out of place among the heavy meats and stews being served – they had not yet come to the time for the sweeter dishes to be served. Boromir looked for another such dish along the table, but found none, and took the piece she offered without comment, the honey strange against the other flavors of the feast. Yet when he looked to offer some to the others, the plate was gone. "And a little wine to chase it down?" she asked again. Boromir took the cup she offered, wondering why his own still was on the table, and took a long draw of the sweet, spiced mix. Rhoswen took the cup back and almost immediately took a drink herself, smiling when she saw Boromir staring.

"Do you not remember the harvest, my lord, when you kissed me with wine still on my lips?" she asked, and Boromir remembered.

"I remember two kisses, Lady, and worse wine than this," He said truthfully, wondering where she was headed with these questions of hers.

"Then will you settle now for one?" Rhoswen asked, pausing a little and then leaning over the arm of her chair to kiss him, fully, on the lips, a gesture no one could mistake for anything but what it was. Some of the men closest to the high table, the commanders and captains, pointed and chuckled amongst themselves, but further down the hall there were calls and shouts, and much banging of cups on tables as Rhoswen leaned back to her chair, face flushed but still smiling.

_I would think her drunk but she has taken no more wine than a thimble-full. This is some plan of hers I cannot work out, _Boromir thought to himself, watching Rhoswen raise her hands again to call in the next course. It came, but with it came the heralds and a few men bearing musical instruments, including a man in a wildly blue cloak. _So there will be music, too._

The music was enough to divert attention from the kissing to the food at hand, great songs of battle from singers of both Gondor and Rohan, the first attempts to put the death of the previous days' battles into story. Deorwine, the King's herald, sang of Theoden and his riders' journey from the Mark: "Doom drove them on. Darkness took them, horse and horseman; hoofbeats afar sank into silence; so the songs tell us." The words rang darkly against the hall, and men beat their cups against the table-tops in appreciation. Rhoswen wrapped her fingers around Boromir's hand again.

The Rohirric bard looked at the man with the blue cloak, whom Rhoswen addressed as Iorlas, his companion through many of the songs they, and others, had sung, and, after bowing, approached the table. "Your bard has told us, Lady, of the sweet songs of Gondor's ladies, and we wonder - Would my lady do us the honor of a song here?"

"My lady does not sing in company," Boromir said quickly, remembering, with bitter regret, the drunken requests of an aging man who seldom thought of others' needs, and the frightened woman who had answered him. He realized his hand had moved to the arm of her chair, as if to further tell the poet that this woman was his to guard.

"No, I will sing," Rhoswen said suddenly, laying her hand on Boromir's and glancing at him with a smile. "Not a war song, for I do not know those, and could not sing them well if I wished to. Let me sing you a song of love, for the women who cannot be here to offer it to you themselves."

"A love song, then, Lady," Iorlas said with a smile. Rhoswen nodded, and after a brief consultation, and a few notes, Iorlas, seated on the steps before the high table, began to play his lute, a gentle, slow song that his mistress joined, both singing the third verse in close harmony.

Come again! sweet love doth now invite  
Thy graces that refrain  
To do me due delight,  
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die,  
With thee again in sweetest sympathy.

All the night, my sleeps are full of dreams,  
My eyes are full of streams.  
My heart takes no delight  
To see the fruits and joys that some do find  
And mark the storms are me assign'd.

Gentle Love, draw forth thy wounding dart,  
Thou canst not pierce his heart;  
For I, that do approve  
By sighs and tears more hot than are thy shafts  
Did tempt while he, while he for triumph laughs.

A love song, perhaps, but a sad one. There was a silence afterwards, not of awkward indifference, but quiet introspection, each man remembering other homecomings, other voices and faces than the one that sang for them, the silence building into enthusiastic cheering and more pounding of tables. Rhoswen smiled, nodded to the two singers, and retreated a little into her chair, content to remain out of direct scrutiny for the rest of the meal.

The men of the lower hall called for more songs, to hear in her voice the women they might not see again, but she would not oblige, merely shaking her head and smiling shyly, saying little for the remainder of the evening, letting the commanders talk amongst themselves without interruption, and rising only as the meal was coming to its close. "If my lords will pardon me, I must go and see that everything is order for the housing and quartering of these men," She explained. "There are a great many of them, and our people are few."

_Surely those matters have already been attended to, _Boromir reasoned to himself_. What can she be planning now? This has been a night for strange surprises._

"My men can care for themselves," Éomer offered, as graciously as his general demeanor would allow. "We will let the lady of the city take some rest for herself."

"But we are in Minas Tirith, my Lord, and they are my guests," Rhoswen offered, laying her hands on Boromir's as if to remind the Rohirric king to whom he was speaking. "Besides, someone has told me that tonight it will be very cold."

Boromir felt something metallic touch his skin, and looked down to see that Rhoswen had left something pressed into his open palm - a key, as if for some inner door or lock. And there could be only one door it opened. It was an invitation – of a strange sort. He palmed the key in the pouch at his belt, hoping that neither his uncle nor any of the others had not seen. He waited what seemed like an eternity and then also excused himself, disappearing out of the hall and upstairs. Outside the corridors were silent and the castle was dim, as if laying out the funeral palls in advance of the death, anticipating the end to come.

The key to Rhoswen's door was light in the lock, and the door opened almost silently into the still and dark recesses of Rhoswen's solar. The work tables and delicate chairs loomed like ghosts through the darkness, illuminated with only a fraction of starlight from the unclosed drapes. She had sent the girls who worked and slept here away – they would be sleeping elsewhere tonight. Beyond the maze of furniture and women's trappings, the door to Rhoswen's bedchamber was open.

The night was getting colder, and the fire blazed up merrily here. Against its light she was undressing, unbinding her golden glamour with delicate precision. Maireth was with her, helping her out of the rich costume. Boromir watched with fascination as she shrugged off the golden robe and carefully set aside the golden crown with its long, sheer veil and the golden net that had held her hair so delicately.

"My neck aches, Maireth; that crown must easily weigh as much as a small child. How the Queen wore that in court all day I am sure I have no idea."

"Were they impressed, my lady?" Maireth asked, setting the crown on its stand and arranging the veil so it would not crumple.

"I think so," Rhoswen was saying, massaging the back of her neck. "You could cut the silence in that hall with a knife."

"Then the pain, my lady, was worth the effort," Maireth said gently. "Thariel will be pleased. Let me undo your laces, my love, and then we shall work on your shoulders."

"They are lovely shoulders," Boromir said, finally falling into temptation, smiling as Rhoswen and Maireth quickly turned, stunned that he should already be there. Rhoswen could not speak, but it was Maireth who took charge, quickly and efficiently unlacing her lady's dress in full view and nudging her out of it. Without her dress, her crown, her armor, she seemed strangely vulnerable, her chemise diaphanous against the light of the fire behind her, hiding nothing from Boromir's gaze.

"How long have you been watching?" Rhoswen asked, her voice sounding as though her mouth were suddenly dry. Maireth turned quietly, making her exit without any further comment. He heard the bolt drop into the door behind her.

" Not very long. And now you will answer a question of me, Lady," he said, stepping towards her, the firelight through her robe intensely distracting. "Why did you give me that key?"

Rhoswen looked at him, frightened and yet somehow bold, her eyes fixed on him as she searched for the right words. "I made a mistake, once, of letting you ride away without a proper farewell. I mean not to make that same mistake again."

"A proper farewell?"

She blushed, and made a vague motion to her bed, which Boromir could see now had been made with evident care – the sheets had been replaced, scented tapers burned at the bedside, and a wedding sheet had been placed atop the coverlet, the tree of Gondor and of the Stewards, covering the bed, a sign that their love-making, was an affair of state. Boromir suddenly remembered the honeyed cake she had broken over his plate, the silent movement of her lips as she had poured his wine. _The feast was to be her wedding – and this her wedding night_. He suddenly could not put his thoughts into words, remembering that tense night, so many nights ago now, when she had trembled and begged leave not to share his bed even as his father watched in the courtyard below them, determined that his son should be beget an heir. "What will it be for, if we fail?" he asked gently.

"It will be for me," Rhoswen said simply. "Not for your father, or Gondor, or anyone else. Just me."

She looked in that moment more alone and more queenly than he thought he had ever seen her before. Oh, a hundred thoughts then, and all of them without words! _If the armies of Mordor are defeated, and I do not come back, what then for the child? If there is no child, what becomes of a prince's woman when he is dead? And if we do not turn them back, what then for you and the babe you carry? What evils will befall – _He had seen enough villages and enough bodies in his youth to know the answer to that question, and he liked that answer least of all.

She was watching him closely, reading his now-drawn out silence –and she laughed at it! A short, small, weak laugh, but a laugh no less. "Your face betrays you," she accused. "Speak not of failing. You will not fail! You must not fail. And these things," she gestured weakly towards the bed again, "are never certain," she added with another feeble bit of laughter, clasping his hand. "I would not have angry words, buffets and blows be the last between us. At least we shall have had…" She did not finish.

_How simple life was when I did not have to think on behalf of one I love,_ Boromir thought to himself.

"You are determined, then, to do…this?" He could not find the word, if indeed there was one.

Rhoswen nodded, and Boromir smiled pensively for a moment, and reached up to wipe a tear out of her face. "You should have had a better wedding night," he said sadly. _I must go gently to her, _he said internally, reminding himself_. Her determination is good only for so much._

"Some brides do worse," Rhoswen countered, and Boromir laughed, at least for a moment letting Rhoswen smile.

"Yes, leave the smile there a while," Boromir said, stroking her face and the curves of her cheek as she smiled. "I would remember you smiling, Rhoswen, if I can do nothing else."

"I would remember you saying my name," she said, smiling broadly for him and leaning in closer, her touches tentative, but growing in confidence. Boromir felt his body betray him a little as her breasts brushed against his tunic, and he was not sure if he saw her smile or flinch at the touch. That confidence truly wavered, however, when a group of voices passed in the hallway outside; her face flickered quickly to the door, the expression of a deer afraid of the hunter. This was not the queen who had just sat and presided at table with kings and princes – this was the woman from a far province who only wanted to be loved as she loved.

"Maireth guards the door, my love, and she will not stir from it," Boromir reminded her. "Now forgive an old man his blunders – it has been a long while since I have done anything like this."

"Better for you that I have no lovers to compare it to," Rhoswen said archly, laughing through a pained smile, tears at her eyes.

"Now, now," the Steward countered, drawing her close and wiping away her tears. "None of those here, Rhos." The backs of his fingers brushed her cheek again, and by some strange instinct she drew closer to him, and his lips descended on her forehead, kissing the planes of her face, her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and she closed her eyes, tears still clinging to her eyelashes. But it seemed his kisses shook something loose in her, for her hands seized around his shoulders, drawing herself up to greet his lips with a kiss that seemed to burn at him.

"Let no man say you are not beautiful, Rhoswen of Anfalas," Boromir said huskily, his hands dropping to embrace her waist, his need becoming more and more apparent.

"Let no man but you say it," Rhoswen begged. Y_ou are the only thing left in my world I can trust._

She did not hesitate to let him touch her, and they stumbled through the dark towards her bed, shedding clothes as they went, her hands surprisingly deft with the ties of his garments, all a part of the oldest dance known to men, and women, too.

Their coupling was brief, quick to spark but not so quick that it would not be remembered. Rhoswen closed her eyes, her hips crying out at the indignation of being pressed back and back against the clean expanse of linen she'd carefully laid out before, her body rebelling and rejoicing at the same time at all of this newness.

He cried out, and she felt something slick and warm inside her legs, felt his manhood calming, going limp. He withdrew, laying down beside her, and Rhoswen felt her legs close, sticky to the touch as she turned away from him, trying to take stock of what had happened, of what her body was trying to say. _When I am alone and cold I must remember this night, and him. The sound of his laughter and the touch of his fingers._ Her thighs ached, and as he reached to touch her, hold her, his hand caressed her leg and something inside her twisted open, making her cry out in surprise. The sound hung in the silence between them for a while.

"You might have said it hurt," he offered quietly. "I would not have minded. I might have stopped, gone slower."

"It was not…as bad as I thought it would be," she lied.

"Are you lying to please me?" Boromir asked quietly, his voice soft against the nape of her neck. _How well he knows me_! She said nothing, a little ashamed that it was true, and he took that as answer enough. "Your shoulders are tense." She felt his thumb trace an unknown path along her skin, and felt her pulse race for a moment."What shoulders! They seem to hold up half my world. And I wish I could take better care of them."

_When I am cold and alone I must remember this! _She reminded herself again. Leaning over, he kissed her neck, and instinctively she turned, like a child looking for its mother, and found his face with her hand, still blinking tears out of her eyes. His head leaned to kiss her breast, licking it softly, and she closed her eyes and took the moment in, Boromir's head heavy on the pillow next to hers. A single finger stole across her face.

"Rhoswen, are you crying again?" His voice was gently admonishing her, and she knew why.

It was not just the pain now that brought her tears. "Only because you are home." _And you may never be so again,_ something in her mind added. _This may be all I give you – the first touches of a tender girl._

"Come back here," he said, and drew her into his arms, nestling her against him and laying one more kiss on the back of her neck. "Yes," he said softly, his breath warm against the tip of her spine. "Here is where I am home."

She thought in that moment that she could not be more happy, or more sorrowful. And she did not want time to move forward from it. _When I am cold and alone I must remember this._

She was still sleeping when he rose the next morning, the picture of contentment, her hair spread over her pillow, breathing slowly in and out, the sheet rising and falling with her. Boromir wanted to kiss her but thought the better of it, wondering if she would wake. It was early, but he had much to do – men to muster, supply trains to check – an army to march out of the gates on the road to Mordor.

He would need his armor – and that was in his room, not hers. He dressed and left as quickly as he could, pausing at the door to make sure she was still asleep. It was a sad smile that came to his lips then – had he not seen her sleeping thus, in his bed, just before he left Osgiliath? She looked almost wanton to him now, her hair wild across her naked shoulders, so far removed from the shy woman she had been the night before._ I may never see this again_, he thought to himself.

The door creaked on his way out, but he did not have time to see that it had not woken her. His armor and his lists were in his bedroom, near the other side of the house. It seemed an age to walk there from Rhoswen's rooms, greeting no one except servants in the quiet corridors before true dawn.

The soldier they had assigned to be his squire was still sleeping in his outer room, and Boromir had no wish to break that young man's sleep, either. How many years had he armored himself for battle without complaint? He would do so now.

"So you are going, then," Rhoswen said sadly, and Boromir turned to see her in the doorway, the heavily creased chemise from last night hidden by a heavy robe, wrapped loose and held in place by her arms, folded over her chest as if she were cold. There was a heavy red mark on her neck where he had kissed her during their love play. "Like a lover sneaking away from his mistress' bed," she added sadly.

"I thought it would be better that way," Boromir offered weakly. "I tried not to wake you."

"The door creaks sometimes, when the morning is cold." Rhoswen looked as though she might cry again. _She must have followed very close to be here when she is,_ Boromir thought to himself. "Let me help you," she offered, taking one of the greaves and kneeling down to bind it onto his leg, one of the pieces he could not have gotten on but for a squire's help. Silently she armored him, checking straps and anchoring in the many pieces that would keep him safe. Boromir wondered silently how she had gained so much knowledge so quickly, and then remembered she had been busy in the Houses of Healing. She would have taken off much of this armor in the last few weeks.

"And now bid me goodbye as a husband should, with a kiss for his wife," she said, begged, almost. One kiss turned into two, and two turned into five, and after that it seemed Boromir might never leave but for Rhoswen's kisses.

"If you delay me any longer, woman, I may have to take all this off and come back to bed with you," he threatened, trying to make a joke that neither one found funny enough to laugh at. Rhoswen gave him a hopeful smile and another kiss on the cheek, and took a step away.

"Let us not keep our king waiting," she said with resignation. They would leave from the gate, but she would not accompany them there. Another all-too-brief kiss in the stableyard was all she could take, surrounded by Imrahil's Swan Knights mounting up, trying not to look overlong at their lord's nephew and his lady, who walked with the careful gait of a newly made wife.

"Don't worry, sister, I'll watch him for you," Erun offered from over Rhoswen's shoulder as Boromir took his place at the front of the mounted column, the Steward glancing back several times to make sure his Lady was still there. "I want my nephew to have a father," he said quietly, smiling as she looked at him with surprise. "I want lots of nephews, if you can manage it, and nieces too."

Rhoswen looked quickly at her brother and started crying again, burying her face against him. "Please both come back," she begged one last time, retreating to the doorstep as the company prepared to move out. "We'll talk of nephews then." She was working at mastering her tears again, trying to be that imperturbable golden goddess once more.

Yes, there should be a nephew for Erun, if she had timed it right. She had drunk her tonics and untied all the knots in her room so her womb would be open, and wrapped a red thread around the posts of her bed, and a dozen other old wives' tales that she did not fully believe in and had practiced anyway in the vain hope that one of them might prove true and she might still have something, however small and helpless, of Boromir's if he did not come back.

It had been in the treasury when she had realized what she was doing – they had passed a pair of embroidered baby shoes, hardly worn, a gift for some long since grown-up princeling, and she had remembered how lonely she had been when Boromir had first left, how much she wanted someone to share her time with. And she had decided, then and there, that she would try for it. For a child, if the gods were kind, or for the memory of making one, if they were not. _When I am cold and alone I must remember this night._

She climbed back up to the parapet of the seventh level, watching the short line of men disappear into the North, finally becoming a mere streak against the landscape. She could do nothing more for them now, except perhaps to pray. Pray, and look after the wounded.

_When I am cold and alone I must remember my promises, too._

* * *

For the longest time I wasn't sure if this scene had a place in this new story. I hemmed, I hawed, I cropped and chopped and tried to couch things in the vaguest language possible, but it was still there. In the original story, it is suggested, vaguely, that Boromir and Rhoswen sleep together at Osgiliath, before he leaves on the Ring-quest. I realized I didn't like the implications of that – Rhoswen is not a woman who sleeps around lightly. She needed spine and a place where she could say 'no' and a place where she could say 'yes' and make that yes mean something, and so this scene stayed. Another deep breath before the plunge.

A special shout-out to my lone reader on the isle of Guernsey, whose name I do not know and whose views on this story I have not had the pleasure of reading, but whose traffic stats always make me smile. I'm not sure who you are, but I think you win the award for 'most geographically random reader' every month. Thanks for keeping the Channel Islands cool.

It should be a happier chapter for Christmas, but this is where we are, and this is what we get. We descend into the darkest part of the year only to emerge again into the light. Apologies, and Merriest of Christmases, Hannukahs, Festivius, and all other assorted winter holidays to all of you wherever you are.


	31. Chapter 31

I am tired of tears and laughter,

And men that laugh and weep;

Of what may come hereafter

For men that sow to reap:

I am weary of days and hours,

Blown buds of barren flowers,

Desires and dreams and powers

And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour,

And far from eye or ear

Wan waves and wet winds labour,

Weak ships and spirits steer;

They drive adrift, and whither

They wot not who make thither;

But no such winds blow hither,

And no such things grow here.

-Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909),  
_The Garden of Proserpine_

* * *

_Darkness, darkness, always darkness. And the Great Eye, red and ruthless, haunted her at every turn. She was running, but could not fully flee – the globe of flame was holding her back, trapped within his terrible gaze. The Master of Minas Morgul was bearing down upon her, his hand powerful and his steed swift, readying his sword to rise and strike…_

Éowyn awoke to cool hands on her face, a comforting voice in her ear. "Peace, Lady, peace. No one here seeks to harm you. Open your eyes – no one here will harm you," the woman's voice said again.

She heard rustling, then the slight splash of something hitting water, her eyes still tightly shut against whatever might still be out there. The dream had been so real. It did not seem possible that she and Merry had slain the Nazgul lord. He might have been dead, but he haunted her still.

The smell was wafted towards her face, the bowl swirled above her head to dispense the scent around her. It smelled of…oh merciful heaven, it smelled of home, of lichens and rocks and simbelmyne. "You need not fear me here, Lady Éowyn. The Shadow will not touch you in these Houses."

She felt a strong but gentle hand on her unbroken arm, coming out of sleep in a sort of fitfulness, realizing, as her senses came back to her, that her sheets were tangled about her, as though she had struggled against them during the night, and her pillow was soaked with sweat. _Did I think it so real that my body betrays me so violently?_ Éowyn wondered to herself, feeling angry and ashamed that she should be found thus. It was still dark – the sun had not yet risen. The only light in the room came from an oil lamp, sitting sentinel near the door and giving off a wavering, flickering flame, just enough so that Éowyn could see that the woman who had woken her was younger than most of the healers, dark-haired like most of the women of Gondor she had so far seen.

"You have dark dreams," the young woman said, more an observation than a question. Éowyn scowled, ashamed that it was true and that she was here, in a foreign place, and had to own to it.

"What would you know of it?" she asked sharply, neither affirming the question nor accepting the woman's offer of solace. The woman gave a wry smile.

"My dreams are also full of dead men."

It was enough to make Éowyn's scowl recede a bit. " A hundred things may be the stuff of dark dreams. How did you know I dreamed of death?"

"I heard your crying in the corridor. You called to people who would not answer you, and that troubled you. I cannot sleep at all, myself," the other woman offered. "My dreams do not allow it. I envy you a little for that. I have a cup of tea here for you, if you will take it. It will make your rest a little sounder. Though I have drunk enough that it will no longer work for me."

Éowyn eyed the cup with a mixture of disdain and distrust. "Spare me your pity. I have no need of it." _Does she think I am one of their weak women that I cannot take a few bad dreams?_

The woman nodded slowly, studying Éowyn's face for a moment. "As you will," she said finally, setting the clay cup on the table beside Éowyn's bed. "Should you need me, Lady, I am down the hall." She glanced from Éowyn's still displeased expression to the tea, steaming a little in the nighttime chill. "It tastes worse cold," she cautioned, and then disappeared back out into the hallway.

Éowyn took another long look at the tea and then turned over in bed, her back towards the door, trying to burrow into her bedclothes and wring out whatever last drops of sleep still remained for her.

The cup waited on her bedside table the next morning, cold and foul-smelling, and her morning attendant removed it without comment, replacing it with a cup of clear, cold water that Éowyn found no complaint with.

"Did your sleep improve?" A familiar voice asked from the hallway, and Éowyn looked towards the doorway to see her new friend from the night before. In the full light of day Éowyn could see that she was built as most of the other Gondorian women who had tended her, with a full head of long dark hair that she kept pinned back and full, bright eyes that today looked very tired and a little dark –rimmed.

"No," Éowyn said shortly, watching as she came into the room trailed by another individual, a girl carrying bandages and some other supplies in a long, low wooden bowl. "What is that for?" she asked, none too gently, as they began laying the bowl's contents out along the table at Éowyn's bedside.

"Salve for your bruises," the woman said, holding a jar out for Éowyn to see, "And fresh bandages, if we think you need them. Give me your arm," she ordered, and Éowyn, taken back for a moment, dutifully complied. The healer examined Éowyn with expert fingers, her hands gentle and sure, and her manner very unlike the healers of Edoras to whom Éowyn was accustomed. Herbwives they had in Rohan, but none like the Healers of the Houses, who studied not just the hurts of the body, but the needs of the soul sometimes as well. Éowyn's cuts were healing rapidly, and the woman treated only a few, dabbing them full of the sweet smelling salve she had brandished at Éowyn earlier, explaining what she was doing for the benefit of the young woman with her, obviously a trainee healer of some sort.

"This progresses nicely," she commented, feeling the bones tenderly through the bandages and splints that had already been applied days earlier. "It does me good to see your mind's night-time wanderings have not hindered its progress. You should be able to use your fingers soon."

"It will not be soon enough for me," Éowyn said bitterly.

"Your pardon, Lady," the woman said with a surprised attempt at a smile. "I meant it well. I have comfrey and chamomile here, and willow bark, for tea. It will knit your bones better, and take a little of the pain off."

Éowyn looked at the herbal preparation and laughed. "First for a little unrest in my dreams, and now for the matter of a simple broken arm. Are the women here in Gondor so weak that they must have all their hurts tended with drugs to deaden pain?"

The words cracked through the room like a whip, and there was a moment of stunned silence in their wake. The younger woman's eyes were murderous enough to match Éowyn's own, and she looked ready to say something, but her companion silenced her before she could get in a full word. "Peace, Thariel, it is the pain that speaks only. Leave off drinking the tea if you wish, Lady. I meant it only for your comfort, not as an insult."

"The warriors of my uncle's hall have little use for comfort," Éowyn said coldly, not meeting the woman's gaze. "I can take none while they are on the road to war and ruin. It would be dishonorable." The younger woman fumed, and the older only nodded.

"Very well. Another healer will be in shortly to change the dressings on your arm. I will tell them you wish for no willow bark."

She did not attempt to meet Éowyn's eyes, and Éowyn made no attempt to follow them out. She heard the younger woman in the hallway, hissing at her teacher, and the other woman's measured reply. _Let them think what they like of me. I am no weak woman. By all rights I should not be here – I should be with my brother, and with the Lord Aragorn, riding North to the Black Gates. And instead they have left me here with the wounded._

How she longed to at least see the road to the north, let her eyes follow the path her feet could not travel – but her window looked south, across the river. _What solace can a river be to me? I longed for death in battle, for an end to uselessness and idleness, and it did not come, and here I am again, useless and, it seems, without the means to make myself useful._

"A fine day, Lady, is it not?" an older man said tentatively, his gray-clad frame filling the doorway to Éowyn's room. He followed Éowyn's gaze to the window and the bird she was watching there.

"Fine enough, if you like the sound of birds and wind," Éowyn parried.

"I suppose you are right," the man said with a slight smile. "I am Arthion, the Warden of this place. Your brother asked us to keep a special watch on you – I was sent to see about your arm by one of our other healers." He looked for some reaction from her, but none came, except the lingering anger that Éowyn kept to herself about needing someone else's care. The healer came further into the room, setting his supplies down on a small table and settling himself into the waiting chair. "My daughter thought to tell me that you were displeased with her service. She thought a father's touch might sooth you better than – what were the words she used? A weak woman's ways."

"I speak as I see," the daughter of Eómund said evenly.

"Just so," the healer said with a partial smile. He gestured to her arm, and Éowyn held it out for him to inspect, watching as he unwrapped it and wincing as he ran his hands down the bruised bone. Sensing something she did not, he set some herbs to soak for a moment before applying them directly to her skin and beginning to wrap the bandages again. "Young Thariel - my daughter- now, she is a proper young Gondorian lady, as I hear you have described quite readily – a little too ready for easy comfort. And much good that will do her in times like these. I understand your anger there. But lay no blame at Rhoswen's feet. She is not the creature you seem to see."

"Why not?" Éowyn asked, her anger, and the fine line of pain in her conscious, keeping her nettled.

"She is the only trueborn lady left in the city to take your censure," the man said fairly. "All the rest have fled to the mountains with their easy comforts."

"Surely there must still be some comfort to be had here, rather than in a drafty tent on the plains of the Lebannin."

"For certain, there is some…but not for Lady Rhoswen. Warm her bed may be, but she gets scarce use of it. She has the keeping of the city, and it keeps her from her sleep. As do other things." He took Éowyn's silence as a token that he might continue. "She is the Steward's…well, I suppose she is his wife now, or as good as, and when he is away the city, and her people, are in her care. She must look after all their needs, their food and water, their shelter, their fires and clothes and all else."

Éowyn sniffed dismissively, trying to hide a shock of pain as one of the bandages pinched her skin too tightly. It must have been a poor bluff, for Arthion stopped wrapping and went back a few passes.

"And she must see to their courage, too, with her own," the healer mentioned. "Even if she has none left to spare."

"Courage! What would a woman of this city know of courage?" _Who among them has lifted a sword, or heard the cry of orcs bearing down upon them, or felt their arm quiver as they struggled to keep their shield tall? Who among them has looked on death and lived?_

"A just question, Lady, of a surety," the man responded diplomatically, finishing his wrapping and tying the ends just so. "But I would leave you with this. I have seem that woman lie to a dying boy with a radiant smile and despair after that she did not do him justice by withholding his death from him, and hold the hand of a seasoned warrior twice her size without complaint as they pulled a spear from his leg and her fingers looked as though they would spring from their joints for the power of his grip, and I have seen her continue working and smiling to her patients even as the walls of that city you scorn were crushed around her. And all that while she wondered if her brothers, her father and her husband would be alive, or if she would ever see them again. Is that not also courage, Lady Éowyn?" He smiled at her hopefully and patted her hand. "Flex your fingers for me."

Éowyn moved her fingers in a trance, thinking about the hands of her uncle's housecarls, and what it would be like to take them in that death-grip, knuckles white from the strain, and forgot the pain in her arm a moment for the phantom pain in her fingers. By the time she remembered where she was, the Warden had gone, and she was alone again. Something the healer had said only just now registered. A name, the healer's name - Rhoswen.

It was not a common name in Gondor - and not the first time Éowyn had heard it. No, it was not – seven months ago, at least, was it not, when the Lord Boromir had come to Rohan in the late summer, riding northward on an errand he would only discuss with the King. Long that errand had detained him, and the talks with her brother Éomer and her cousin Théodred, Marshals of the Mark and military men like the Steward's son. Éowyn knew little of him then, this lord of the south, but she supposed like her brother he was a busy man, with the defense of his city and his country to command.

She had listened to the women of her uncle's household gossiping before the evening meal_. "I remember him in his younger days, when his father still sent him to speak with Théoden King. Tall and fine he was in those days, and mark my words, tall and fine he shall be now." _

"_He had a taste for women, too, when he was younger," one of the goodwives remembered. "This was before my Aelric married me. Never one for flirting though, was he, all business and no fine talk like some of them Gondorian lordlings. Oh, how they used to sing when they heard Boromir the Blessed was in Edoras. "_

"_Who did?" one of the younger daughters asked, prompting little shakes of laughter from some of the older women. _

"_The low women," the goodwife said, pitching her voice to a whisper. The young girl's eyes went wide at the mention of the whores who plied their trade in the lower town, a subject that good mothers never mentioned around their children but overmerry (and uncautious) gossips might._

"_He's betrothed now, though why the Steward waited I shouldn't know," another said. "But I've known men his father's age who begot sons on younger wives."_

"_Or younger wives who begot sons off of young housecarls," one of the gossips countered, provoking a tide of laughter and silent, wild blushing from the unmarried women in the group._

_She'd know soon enough, wouldn't she, whether all this talk between the women was true. She'd see him at table tonight._

_He entered the feasting that night with her cousin Théodred and her brother Éomer, clearly older than both, clearly a man that both admired. And why should they not? He was a hero of their own age, a man who fought as they did, but had so much more experience doing so. Even beside Théoden's son and nephew he was tall, no small feat in the company of the House of Eorl, and he looked no stranger to the hall with his tawny hair and beard. He knew all the correct forms, though it seemed to give him some restlessness to use them, but his manners were almost too refined beside those of his table companions. But there was something about him that drew the women to him – and Éowyn could see, even sitting where she was, that her brash, somewhat vain cousin did not like it one bit. A king's son he might be, but even wonderfully handsome, charming Théodred was no match for the certain charm of a foreigner. And this king's son was not pleased with it._

_Nearly an hour into the feast, Éowyn could see that her cousin's manners – never usually the most reliable - were beginning to slip even further. The servitor carrying a flagon of ale was never far from his chair, the loudness and liveliness of his voice rising as the flagon's contents fell. Theodred laughed too long, pushed too hard – and sooner or later, she knew, he would do something exceptionally stupid. She was considering telling the ale-bearer to begin pouring water for her cousin's cup, but before she could move away from her chair, the moment struck._

"_Tell me, Lord Boromir, is my cousin Éowyn not handsome?" Théodred asked, his cup pausing only for a moment between the server's pitcher and its master's lips. Éowyn froze, already out of her chair, already conspicuous._

_Boromir paused, considering Éowyn's face. The Steward's son, she knew, was close to forty, a good many years older than both her cousin and her brother, and as he looked at her his eyes seemed much kinder than she'd imagined for a man of his age and reputation in war. She stood up a little straighter and returned his gaze with a haughty glare of her own._

"_I think it true, yes, but I think the man who tells her that will get much more than he bargained for," Boromir said candidly, making the whole hall erupt in laughter. Éowyn colored a little but maintained her composure – he'd judged her rightly, and what shame was in that? The Gondorian raised his cup to her, dipping his head a little in salute, and she bowed her head back, acknowledging him and taking her seat again as though she had never meant to leave. But Théodred would not let the matter rest._

"_Surely," he began, lips full of smiles, "There can be no finer woman in all of Rohan than Éowyn Éomund's daughter. In all of Gondor as well," he added._

_Boromir's face turned cold. "In this hall she has no equal," he said, rising from his seat. "But across this Middle Earth? I have not traveled enough for that – and there are fair women aplenty in Gondor, as well."_

"_He thinks of someone as he says that," Théodred accused, pointing with his winecup. The hall quieted, wondering what Boromir might say. And it seemed Théodred was not done speaking. "Who is she then, my lord Boromir? Some exotic beauty of the south you've hidden all this while for your pleasure? Or perhaps your betrothed, perhaps, this…Lady Rosslyn of whom I've heard men speak so well. Almost too well." his eyes twinkled. "Perhaps she is but a dream to tempt men." But the jest was lost on the Gondorian, who had his back to the prince. The hall was deadly still, watching the exchange between the two men with baited breath._

"_Rhoswen," Boromir corrected, his stance still rigid, brow heavy with the obvious burden of controlling his temper. " She is as real as your lady cousin there. And she has no equal in Gondor or in Rohan, or in any of the other kingdoms on the Middle Earth you could name," he said, his voice level but strong with pride and also with…loyalty? Conviction? Éowyn did not rightly know what to call that._

"_And what is it that makes her so peerless?" Théodred asked, rising to his feet with a slight sway to his step._

_Boromir paused, and turned, the suggestion of a sly smile on his face. "Her beauty cannot be spoken of in the words of common men," he said with an air of decision. "Perhaps that is why her brothers do not lightly toss about crass words concerning her looks in feast halls," the Steward's son added, provoking a wide gale of laughter from the housecarls as Théodred leaned back in his chair, stunned. "If you will pardon me, my lords," he said elegantly, retreating from the hall with the laughter still continuing behind him._

_It was the height of discourtesy to leave the hall before the feast was finished, and Boromir, doubtless, had known this. He had meant to make that statement – obviously this woman meant a great deal to him. Éomer looked at his younger sister with a look that said 'Follow him!' She was mistress of the house, and their hostess – it fell to her to make things right with their honored guest. For so highly placed a table companion there would surely be an apology needed – they had slighted him, and he had slighted back. Éowyn rose from her seat, shooting Éomer an evil look as her brother tried to comfort their cousin. She took off after the Lord Boromir, skirts flying, leaving the laughter in the hall behind her._

"_Lord Boromir!" her voice sounded strange to her in the empty corridor, the name foreign sounding on her tongue. The tall Gondorian turned, a bit surprised to see who had followed him. "You must forgive my cousin," she began, a little breathless from her chase. "He is young yet, and not accustomed to the strong drink my lord was served tonight. His father has not of late been strong with him, either," she added, though she knew she should not._

_The older man nodded, his eyes understanding. "Once I was just as young, and just as foolish with my elders, Lady Éowyn. I will not hold it against him." His eyes grew a little distant. "And I, too, know something of what it is like to have an absent father. Truth be told, Lady, I left because I am tired, and in need of rest, and in no mood for fights with your brother or cousin. Please make my apologies." He turned away and continued down the corridor, mind clearly occupied by something else._

"_What is she really like, your lady?" Éowyn asked, ashamed at how desperate she must have sounded. She wanted him to stay and talk with her a while, as her brother and cousin used to do. Here was a great captain of men, one who had seen battle and was well known for his valour and courage. What did it take to win the heart of a man such as him?_

_The question was enough to make Boromir pause, and in the half-light of the corridor Éowyn could see why the ladies had called him handsome, with steel-bright eyes and a warrior's frame, broad shoulders and powerful arms. _He is a man the poets will write songs about,_ she thought to herself._

"_She is the best of women," he said fondly. "Beautiful of face and of heart, strong of mind, and bold of spirit. She cares for all without thought for herself. And she is brave beyond measure," he added, "as you are, Lady."_

"_Does she distinguish herself through strength of arms, or feats of courage?" Éowyn asked, adding, on a whim, "Surely she must, to win the love of so distinguished a captain."_

_Boromir laughed, the laugh of a parent correcting a child's illogical dream. Éowyn felt ashamed again. "There are many ways to be brave, Lady Éowyn, and not all of them are found in war. No," he said, "Rhoswen is a woman of peace, which even knights and warlords must have some times. As I am just now finding." There was a silence, and Éowyn swallowed, suddenly feeling much younger than her twenty-three years. "Good night, lady," the Captain of Gondor said with finality. "Tell your people I will take my leave in the morning."_

And he had left in the morning, leaving behind a shamed Théodred and a confused Éowyn. He did not make sense in Éowyn's world, this lordly man from the south. She had watched her uncle's men, the thains and housecarls of Meduseld, from infancy, and listened to the women who raised her as they talk of who loved whom and what this girl or that would have to win a man. Had not her grandmother Morwen been of the South, and had she not won the love of Thengel through her great deeds and strength? Steelsheen, they had called her, after the color of her eyes, the bright gray of a well-polished blade. The proud men of the Rohirrim had no need for weak wives, and the women of the house of Eorl found pride in their skills with sword and knife. Surely it would be the same in the south for a warrior like Lord Boromir.

_But it was not as I expected. I did not understand then what he could have meant by bravery without valourous deeds_, Éowyn thought to herself, watching the Lady in the corridor beyond the garden, busying herself with some other herbal preparation_. Yet she has a kind of bravery, as Arthion said, to stay here when others have left, and remain hope-filled. She has no sword, but she has no fear, either. And if she does, she hides it well, as a warrior should._

_She is what Théoden wished you to be_, something whispered in her mind. _He asked you to stay, and take charge of his people, if he did not return. Perhaps you might learn something from her._

_Perhaps you might apologize first, _another part of her mind parried swiftly. And, suddenly, it seemed the right thing to do.

But when? The lady Rhoswen certainly was not idle – Éowyn watched her the rest of the day, bustling to and fro from her window, her hands always full of some project or another, her words quick but always kind. As the afternoon passed, Éowyn saw less of her, until finally a full hour had passed when she did not walk by at all. Where had she gone? Éowyn rose from her bed, her head spinning as she placed her feet on the floor, and went looking for her keeper, her good hand on the wall to keep the floor from rising up to meet her.

"Lady Éowyn, you should still be abed!" Rhoswen said in shock as the Lady of Rohan stumbled into her bedroom, her eyes half-closed in concentration, slumping into the chair that Rhoswen quickly offered. It took a few minutes for her good sense to return, and she dutifully drank the water Rhoswen forced into her hands.

"I would ask…your forgiveness." Éowyn said softly, after the water had been drunk.

"That is no excuse for leaving your rest," the Gondorian lady said with a smile. "And for what? For being angry? For speaking your mind? For feeling alone? I know a little of bars and cages and feeling useless, too." She smiled as Éowyn looked at her with unrepentant surprise. "It is why I am here tending the wounded – because I could not tend the dead."

"The warden said you lost your brother, and your father," Éowyn remembered.

"Good friends of childhood, too, and many other men whom I knew and cared for, but I am not the only one who has lost." The healer laid her hand on Éowyn's, and the sudden touch brought Éowyn's eyes up to Rhoswen's for a moment. "I have sat by your uncle's bier and prayed for him as I might one of my own kin. If that comforts you at all."

_Oh, Uncle!_ She saw his face, lips stained frothy red with blood, trying to speak with her, brushing hair from her face, and suddenly the stuff of her nightmares overwhelmed her. This was what she had been struggling against, with little success, and here was this woman of Gondor to bring that sword straight home! "It is of little comfort," Éowyn said, trying to master her tears. "But I thank you for it anyway!" She said this last as a sob, her grief finally realizing itself in a way that she had not allowed since her cousin's death. With large, gasping sobs she cried into Rhoswen's shoulder, and it was not for her uncle alone she cried. _My brother has left me, the man that I would love does not see me as anything but a child, I am far from home and everything that would give me solace is taken from me._ She did not know that she was talking, but she must have said some of this, for Rhoswen's hands were reassuring on her back, rubbing warmth into her shoulders, her voice calm and reassuring, repeating some platitude Éowyn did not really hear.

When the worst of the crying was over, Éowyn sat back, smiled half-heartedly, and nodded away offers of a handkerchief, content to use the long sleeve of her gown to blot at her eyes. Rhoswen watched this with a gentle kindness, saying nothing.

"Might I … see him? I will wait in bed as long as you require me, as long as I have this!" Éowyn plead.

The Gondorian considered, glancing out her own window for some kind of inspiration, and finally nodded. "I think we might allow that – if I go with you, and we take the way slowly," she added. "Now sit while I find you warmer clothes."

She found a cape for Éowyn, and sturdy leather slippers to keep her feet off the stone floors of the houses, easier to put on than the shield-maid's heavy riding boots and tunic. And together, arm in arm, they went to the mortuary vaults.

King Théoden lay in state in the largest room the mortuary held, attended, not by his own knights, but only burning torches fashioned of sweet resin and cedarwood, to mask the smell of death. His banner lay draped over his body, the White Horse of Eorl strangely still without a wind behind it. His face was not how Éowyn remembered it, eyes wide and white, lips half-parted in pain. The healers who had prepared his body had done well – gone was the bloody froth, the look of agony. He might have been asleep save that his chest did not rise and fall.

"There should be warriors to guard him in his last hours above ground," Éowyn said. "But I suppose they have all gone with Éomer my brother."

"I will see what we can do about a watch," Rhoswen offered. "There are some here who spoke highly of his fight on the field. We are not now so sorely pressed that we cannot give him that last honor." She contemplated the body before them, glancing at Éowyn to watch the young woman's demeanor. The room was cold, and Éowyn looked as if she were feeling it, her hands almost translucent white, shaking a little. From what cause, the cold or the sadness, Rhoswen could not say. She looked lost, and the Gondorian wanted to pull her back again. "They sang a song for him, at the Last Feast," Rhoswen remembered. "Once in Rohirric and once in the Common Tongue. 'Forth rode the king, fear behind him, fate before him. Fealty kept he; oaths he had taken, all fulfilled them.' There was more, but I do not remember it. It was a good verse."

"He was like a father to me, more than an uncle," Éowyn said, as if she had not heard what her companion had said. "And he went to his death knowing I had disobeyed him. And I could not save him, either. It was because of me he died."

"No!" Rhoswen clasped at Éowyn's shoulder and wheeled the woman around to face her. "It is because of the Witch King that he died, not you. And you slew the Witch King. That is the end of it, and there is no dishonor."

"No dishonor for a woman, perhaps, but for a warrior it is a matter of deepest shame that their king should be slain while they stood watch," she said bitterly, turning her face aside so that she did not have to meet Rhoswen's gaze. But Rhoswen had not spent her quiver just yet.

"You are both a woman, and a warrior, Éowyn. A woman's honor is her house, and the protection of all in it. Perhaps you did not save him, but you avenged him, that no further death would come to you, and your men. And that is all that matters. He died as he would have wished to die – as my father and my brother died. I find it hard to live with that – but live I must. And you must live, too." _The days are coming when we will have need of your strong arm and your stout heart_, she thought to herself. And she might have said it aloud, too, had she not looked at Éowyn. The other woman was still staring, lost and childlike, at her uncle's body, missing in thought again. She studied the shieldmaiden and decided – it was time they should be going. Very gently, she took Éowyn's good hand and clasped it in her own. The warmth of her own skin, and the cold of Éowyn's, surprised her, as it did the Rohirric woman. Surprised, Éowyn looked at her hand and then up at Rhoswen's face. She could not speak.

"This is not a fit place for the living, Éowyn," Rhoswen said softly. "Your hands are cold."

Éowyn took another look at her uncle, but she turned readily, her hand heavy on Rhoswen's arm as they walked, slowly and silently, back to the houses. There were a hundred things Rhoswen wanted to say, to offer comfort to this young woman who was not much older than herself, but something inside her knew this was not the time for speech, unless it was the silent camaraderie of the heart. How much she herself had needed that time, and that silence spent in knowing company, when she had gone to Dol Amroth, and how good Lothíriel had been to give it – Lothíriel, who was never silent. She might do as much for Éowyn now.

Neither of them spoke a word before returning to the houses of healing. The day was slowing, but still they went to the garden, far away from the hustle of the main body of the houses, looking out over the city and its coming twilight.

"It should not have been his time to die so soon. He was yet a young king, even if his son was grown." Éowyn's voice was hoarse with disuse.

"Théodred." Rhoswen remembered the name, but knew no face to go with it. _And his son is dead too, cut down at a fording place by the orcs of Isengard. We heard of it. _

Éowyn seemed to rouse to that. "Did you know him?

_All I knew of him was his death_, Rhoswen thought to herself, but this she did not say. "I know very little of your family save their names. And I am only recently come to the city. I would not have met him."

"I knew of your name, before you gave it. Boromir spoke of you when he journeyed North. He argued with Théodred over you."

"Did he?" Rhoswen asked, interested and a little ashamed herself that she should be the topic of debate between lords and princes.

"He said you were bright, and beautiful, and brave. I did not believe him then – but I have seen that there are many different kinds of bravery." She looked sheepish as she said this, as if she did not really want to admit it, and her gaze would not meet Rhoswen's. It was the look of a person who has voiced the truth on one opinion so long that to sway from it seems the deepest sin imaginable.

"It is brave to die in battle," Rhoswen agreed, "But after those deaths, I think it is braver still to live."

"Even when others die for you?" Éowyn wondered aloud, looking at Rhoswen with despair and desperation.

"I would say that is when living must be the most brave," Rhoswen said truthfully. This gave Éowyn pause as she considered it, and finally she nodded, her lips pursed as if she were still trying to convince herself of this, and both women were content to sit in silence. "Your gaze draws east," Rhoswen observed, studying Éowyn's gaze as it shifted towards the window.

"Are not all of your thoughts there?" Éowyn asked.

"A great many of my thoughts, yes," the Gondorian admitted. "Sometimes I think I can hear the sound of battle on the wind – but they will not reach the Morilrannon for another two days yet."

"Sometimes I think I hear them, too. But the wind through my window does not come from the north, or the east." She said this bitterly, but did not move to look at Rhoswen as if to accuse her.

Rhoswen contemplated this. "Would it ease your heart a little if it did?" she asked suddenly, and the light in Éowyn's eyes was a sight to see. For a moment, Rhoswen regretting offering a different room. _Will she dwell too much on battles she cannot see?_ "I shall see what I can do," she said, before Éowyn had to put her feelings into words.

"And … could you not find some work for me? Some small task to keep my hands – my hand – from idleness." She asked this haltingly, and sounded so unsure of herself that Rhoswen wanted to gather her up in her arms as she might a small child.

"Your healing is your task, Éowyn! You need do nothing else for us, and that will be usefulness enough."

"Then let me speak to – to Arthion, the warden! There must be something!"

Rhoswen studied her for a moment, trying to remember what Éowyn, in this moment, reminded her of. Something in Dol Amroth, with Lottie and – and Emlyn! Yes, that was it - A falcon after the flying prize, relentless to the hunt. _I offered her a challenge, unwittingly, and she has taken it._ _She returns to us!_ "But he will give the same answer I have given, and with more force, too, I should say. Your arm must heal, and you must give it time to do so."

"Then who commands him?" the shield-maid asked, relentless.

Rhoswen laughed at her determination. "I suppose that would be Faramir, the lord Boromir's brother. Patience, lady! He lies also in the houses – where he obeys his healers' orders and does no work! I will see if he can speak with you, if his healers allow it. Now, it must be back to bed with you, or I will lose my head to Arthion now, or to your brother later."

Éowyn did as she was told, but slowly, and with great reluctance. Rhoswen wasn't able to get away until she found Bergil and set him to keep a watch on the young Rohirric woman, with further instructions to entertain her in the best way he could find until Rhoswen could come back herself.

Now, to Faramir.

Boromir's brother was not nearly as difficult as Éowyn to handle – Rhoswen found him lying in bed, sitting up and following life outside his window with avid fascination. He must have tracked her across the courtyard, for he looked away from the window as she came in.

"You look tired," he said plainly as she sat down next to his bed.

"I am tired," Rhoswen shot back. "Truth be told, I am not sleeping well. I am not sleeping at all," she amended. "And I doubt I shall sleep until they are back – or the host of Mordor is at our gates." The long slow sleep of death.

"Speak not to dying men of death, Rhoswen," Faramir said glibly, and Rhoswen smiled apologetically. "What woman was that, with you, in the courtyard?" He said, changing the subject before Rhoswen could apologize. Rhoswen glanced over her shoulder, as if she could see the scene as Faramir had.

"Who? Oh, that was the lady Éowyn."

"The king's niece? How does she come to be here?"

Rhoswen sighed. "She comes because she rode out with her uncle's men, desiring death in battle and a place in songs. Death found her, but not as she hoped. Her uncle is dead on the field, and she mourns for him. We went to see his body."

"She had a look that I know well," Faramir said sadly, and Rhoswen looked at him, searching for the answer in his face. "Deep sorrow. A look I've seen you wear over-often of late," he added, glancing at Rhoswen and covering her hand with one of his own. "And it does not suit you. Fair faces should not have cause to look so sad."

Rhoswen looked at Faramir's hand against her own, and the bedspread. It had lost the healthy pallor of a life lived outside in the days he had been here, and his skin was drawing back against the veins, as if he had lost weight recently. It was not a healthy hand, and it made her sad to see it. And sadder still that he should talk of _her_ not looking well! _Oh, Faramir. Always caring more for others than for yourself._

"I am glad you think me fair, Faramir, for I scarcely feel it," Rhoswen said, kissing his brow. "She would speak with you, you know," she added. "She desires to be useful, in some way. And her window does not look east. The window I can change, the usefulness…" She trailed off. "Could you make some time for her?"

"Admist the busy demands of my court?" Faramir asked, gesturing to the rest of his room, littered with all the tools of the medical trade. "I suppose I could, if needs must. Though I do not know what I can do for her."

"I think she wishes only for someone to listen," Rhoswen said, and, seeing Faramir's quickly hidden smile, realized that it had been Faramir's interest that had lead to this conversation, that he had said 'fair faces' referring both to her and to the Rohirric lady. A small smile of her own played about her lips. _Faramir, do you like her look? _She wanted to ask, tease, even, but she supposed that would be too much. "I will send her to you tomorrow, in mid morning. We have permitted her a daily walk."

"I shall look forward to it," the younger son of Denethor said lightly, and Rhoswen had to hide an obvious smile.

_Yes, let us have a little of lighthearted lovemaking here. Let Faramir have a measure of joy – and Éowyn, too, for she sorely needs it. Tomorrow shall be a good day, _she thought to herself._ And let us have a multitude of tomorrows just as good._

* * *

A little levity for all of us here in Gondor. This has not been a very productive month for writing for me, I'm afraid - I've just started another online class that I think will kill me (I had class on Tuesday and by Friday my professor had sent TWELVE emails). I did, however, get to go see the Hobbit - after which I determined being a dwarf princess would be the best job in Middle Earth - and I also got to meet, live and in person, the desk where Tolkien did a lot of the writing of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. (!) Also a Wardrobe belonging to CS Lewis, but that does not have quite as much bearing here.

Ever since I started re-writing this story I knew I had to have this scene. The chapters that take place in the houses of healing between Eowyn and Faramir are among my favorites throughout all of Tolkien's writing, and I liked the idea that Eowyn and Rhoswen are so different and yet could be really, really good friends, married to two brothers. Next chapter will hopefully have more of the book-verse version of this story that I love so much...If I ever find the time to work on it.

Reviews are always appreciated - especially amidst the deluge of school related twaddle I'm getting now.


	32. Chapter 32

_Benedetto sia 'l giorno, et 'l mese, et l'anno,_

_et la stagione, e 'l tempo, et l'ora, e 'l punto,_

_e 'l bel paese, e 'l loco ov'io fui giunto_

_da'duo begli occhi che legato m'ànno._

_Oh, blessed be the day, the month, the year,  
the season and the time, the hour, the instant,  
The gracious countryside, the place where I  
was struck by those two lovely eyes that bound me!_

_-Canzoniere 61, Francesco Petrarch, from a translation by Mark Musa_

* * *

For a man who had been left to die, Faramir was beginning to look much, much better.

He was sitting up in bed more often, and more of his color was coming back. And he smiled more often, which cheered Rhoswen more than she could say. Though why he smiled, she could hazard a guess – and she did not think it was for her benefit alone. Particularly today, when she came with such winsome company as the lady waiting quietly and impatiently in the hall.

"Faramir," she said, by way of greeting, coming to his chair and giving him a sisterly kiss on the cheek. It was good that they had moved him from his bed. Even if it was only a few steps from his bedside to the chair, it was progress, and progress was good.

"Rhoswen. Have you some other posset I must drink now? I feel as if someone else has just come and been with one," the second son of Denethor complained lightly.

"No, Faramir, I am come with a visitor," Rhoswen admonished gently, tucking the blanket at his knees further around him and wondering how this little bit of theater would play with Éowyn. She did not know that Faramir had already been told about her – let her think it a chance meeting, not one that is so carefully staged as this. "This is the Lady Éowyn – she desires to speak with you. I leave her to tell you her business." She beckoned Éowyn into the room, making space for her alongside Faramir's chair.

"It is my great honor to meet the Shieldmaiden of Rohan," Faramir said, bowing his head in greeting. "I would rise and kiss your hand, Lady, but the healers have not yet permitted me that realm of courtesy. I have a little bird named Bergil who has told me many of your exploits and who is quite in awe of you."

"My lord is kind," Éowyn said, just a little flustered at being singled out as a hero of some description.

"I will take my leave of you," Rhoswen said. "You know the way back?" she asked, and Éowyn, momentarily distracted from her unease, nodded a little. "Then I shall not wait," she said, making a brief curtsey and ducking out into the corridor. She meant to leave, had planned to leave, and yet – she pulled herself up short and tucked herself against the wall, listening at the edge of the cloister-walk to what Faramir and Éowyn were saying in the garden beyond.

"But, enough of pleasantries. What can I do for you, Lady? Is something deficient in the care you receive from Lady Rhoswen that I can reprimand her for?"

Éowyn sounded as if she were choosing her words very carefully. "Please do not mistake me, Lord – I am content and well pleased with the healers, and with Lady Rhoswen, whatever you may have heard from her. But I cannot sit by in these Houses while others work. The Lady is never without occupation, and I…I can no longer be content to watch others go about the business of the city while I do nothing."

"So you wish me to order the Lady to find you some occupation?" Faramir asked, doubtless studying Éowyn with an even expression on his face, the sort he wore when he was trying to hide a smile.

"Yes, my lord!" Éowyn's voice was exasperated, desperate, even.

"If you have already asked her and she has given you nothing, I will not gainsay her," Faramir said gently. Rhoswen could almost see Éowyn's face fall. "She knows her business well, and if it is her decision that you be given no work and sit quietly by to watch the others, then that is best."

"But is there no deed for me to do in the city?" Éowyn cried. "I looked for death in battle, and I have not found it, and battle still goes on."

"By rights I should be with my brothers on the plains of Gorgoroth, and now I should have the keeping of the city, but both were denied me, and now you see me as I am – confined to bed while my sister makes my plans for me. Do not think you are the only one in these houses who despairs of being of little use to anyone, Lady," Faramir said sadly.

_Oh, Faramir! Is that truly what you think you are?_ _Would I could give you all the work you require to feel useful! _It was enough to make Rhoswen go cold, and Éowyn draw herself up short. "I am sorry, my lord."

"It is not for you to be sorry over my present problems, Lady Éowyn. I mean it only for example – I am one man among many. I must remind myself, as you must do, that my duty now is my healing, and nothing else, and thank the gods I have such helpers as Lady Rhoswen that make healing the only task for which I am responsible."

"I see, my lord." Éowyn's voice was sad and small, a little defeated.

"Yet – there is something you can do for _me_, if it suits you. The healers say I may begin walking again, if I take the way slowly, and there is someone to help me. But healers are a bit thin on the ground now, and the Lady Rhoswen has enough to trouble her time – and her arm is not nearly as strong as I think yours is."

"You wish me for a crutch, my lord?" The derision, the shame in Éowyn's voice was heart-rending. _Oh, Faramir, could you not have asked her for something else? She is a proud woman, and not easily swayed. Your heart is doughty, but not quite strong enough to match hers in a temper just yet._

"I wish you for a companion," Faramir said boldly. "That you would be helping me along is of secondary importance to me. Were I confined to bed - were I a gray body in the tomb! - still I would beg for your company. But the garden is much more pleasant place for admiring the beauty of a women. And I could spend many happy hours merely admiring you."

If Faramir's suggestion had startled her, his reason for it made Éowyn more startled still. The blanket rustled – was Faramir trying to get out of his chair, or merely sitting up a little straighter? It took all of Rhoswen's self-control not to leap to his assistance and give herself away.

"Yes, Éowyn of Rohan, I would say that you are beautiful, and curse all the men of your acquaintance who have not told you so before, that you should be so surprised to hear it now. When Bergil told me of your deeds, before I had even seen you, I thought you beautiful in heart and spirit, and now as you are before me I see that you are beautiful in so much more as well. In the valleys of our hills there are flowers fair and bright and maidens fairer still, but neither flower nor lady have I seen until now in Gondor so lovely, or so sorrowful. And if it is as some men say, and the last days of the world are coming upon us, I would see some little joy throw light upon your brow, that I might see you in your fullest beauty before the end of all things."

It was purely, wonderfully Faramir, the poet and singer of songs who had for too long tried to bend his mind to his father's wishes for him. But Denethor was gone, and all requirement of war gone for the moment, too, and the poet in Rhoswen's heart leapt for joy to hear him speak as she had not heard since his visit to Dol Amroth, all those many months ago. She might have cried out but that she did not want to be discovered in the hallway eavesdropping, and she wished to hear what Éowyn would say to all of that.

Silence said the shieldmaiden was overawed again.

When she did finally speak, it was softly, and carefully. "If no one has spoken of my beauty before, my lord, it is because they were not bold enough to face me afterwards." A small laugh from Faramir, quickly muffled. "I do not have a heart built hold such things readily, and I do not know if my heart can now yield up any little joy or beauty or ….whatever else you could name." She paused here, and Rhoswen yearned to see Faramir's face. But it seemed Éowyn was not finished. "But I cannot deny that to wait alone is the worst waiting of all, and I would not wish it so on anyone. I will be your companion, if it is your wish."

"You have heard already it is," Faramir said happily.

"But be warned – I am not gentle as the lady Rhoswen is, and my touch and my tongue can be unkind," Éowyn added quickly, lest Faramir think she were giving up too easily.

"That is just as well, for even poets must be checked sometimes. Until tomorrow, lady. I will have the boy Bergil come and find you, and we shall see together if his tales of your exploits are true."

Éowyn said nothing as she came back to her room, although her face was flushed and she was oddly quiet. Rhoswen said nothing, either, content to keep the secrets she had heard to herself for the present. She did, however, have to smile as she caught a glimpse of Éowyn studying herself in the mirror, eyes pensive and lips slightly parted, her fingertips examining the curves of her face as if trying to read a secret message carved there in unseen runes.

And that night, when Rhoswen brought her dinner, she asked, very quietly, in a sort of sideways, subtle manner to know a little bit more about the Lord Faramir, about…what manner of man he was, and what he was known for, and what deeds he had done, and Rhoswen was only too happy to oblige her.

The next morning Bergil came, as promised, to collect Éowyn from where she was sitting and watching Rhoswen work with the account books for the houses. From her quick glance, the White Rose saw that Bergil was wearing his page's livery, and his hair had been brushed, and his hands looked cleaner than usual. _Oh, my little champion, how much time you must spend with your uncle, when you know as well as I what a lover's meeting looks like, and have an idea of how to attend on one_, Rhoswen thought to herself, smiling briefly and sending the two of them on their way with Bergil interviewing Éowyn in a grand, excited style and filling her in on the finer points of Faramir's adventures.

The happy thought of sweet, gentle Faramir and the sharp, bright Shieldmaiden sustained her smile for a while until her mind was drawn back to the matter at hand. Columns and figures on the amount of herbs left in the houses, and needing a good re-reckoning after the events of the last weeks. It was simple work, but difficult, sometimes, when jars were mislabeled and healers did not refresh things in the supply cupboards as they should.

Simple, and difficult, and mind-numbingly dull by turns. The warmth brought on by the thought of Faramir and Éowyn had faded, and Rhoswen's mind wandered terribly as she counted jars and checked figures. How she would like to be in a garden with her beloved! Yes, her garden, in the sun, the springtime, noon-day sun. Spring would be coming soon, and he would come back to her, and she would make him spend hours with her in the garden. Simply talking, or sitting in silence. She was not a woman who was hard to please. Her flowers, and sunshine, and Boromir, and her life would be complete. That would be good.

The sun came out from behind a cloud for a moment, and Rhoswen closed her eyes, setting aside her quill to lap up the feeble strain of sunlight coming in the window, her mind far away in her garden, with Boromir at her side. Her mind wandered farther away, remembering his hands on her hips, his body pressed against hers, and in the sunshine she could almost feel him, feel_ him_, again.

"My lady, are you all right?" Ioreth's voice crashed through her daydream like a sword through silk. "You're red as any fever – and warm, too, gods above. Have you taken any belladonna? Your eyes are like the bottom of a well."

"It's nothing, Ioreth," Rhoswen said quickly, pressing her knees together and trying to recover her composure. "It's just a little warm in here, that's all. I think I'll take a walk, if you don't mind. It's as good a place to stop as any."

Her legs did not seem to be her own, and she mis-stepped once or twice trying to leave the room, her face still flushed with pleasure and, now, shame. When she had put enough distance between herself and the older healer, she leaned against the wall and tried to make the feeling in her pelvis pass, pressing her hands against the cool stone of the wall as if that might help to clear the haze in her head. The blood raced in her veins, thumping wildly, pounding at her ears like warhammers. There was an ache there she could not seem to disperse, an emptiness that longed to be full. _How simple life was when I knew nothing of the business of being a wife. When I am cold and alone I must remember this, I said – and should have added where Ioreth cannot find me_, she reminded herself.

The feeling had passed. Her body was her own again. Still empty, still alone – but hers to command.

_Oh, Boromir! Where are you waiting now, and for what? Is your waiting as painful as mine is? Are you still on this good, green earth with me?_

* * *

The earth where Boromir had waited that morning was neither good nor green.

Precious little fodder had they found for their horses as they journeyed north out of Ithilien and into the land surrounding the Dead Marshes. A fitting name, for since the battle of the Dagorlad all those many centuries ago a reek of death had hung about the plains, with the fairylights of the marsh in the far-off distance providing little comfort. Thankfully, they did not need to go into the Marshes, but only along the ridges of the Ered Lithui. Even so, the way was hard going. But they were nearly there. This was to be the final encampment – after their march today, they would be at the gates of Mordor, and between the hammer and the anvil, as the saying sometimes went.

Boromir poked the meager ashes of last night's watchfire and cupped his hands tighter around his drinking horn, wishing he still had his fur-lined traveling cloak with him. But the cloak had been too heavy and too cumbersome, for an army riding to war, and he had left it at home, taking the simple black cloak of the Tower Guard instead. It was the one he had always worn with his plate armor, the one that felt the most right, except, perhaps, in the cold hours of the morning when the fire was low and there was little wood to add to it.

Another person was stirring in the camp, his boots heavy on the dry grass and his armor a little creaky. Boromir looked up as Aragorn joined him at the fire, rubbing his hands together and trying to warm them at the feeble flames.

"The dawn comes late here," he observed, almost sadly.

"We are almost in lands where it comes not at all," Boromir remembered. "My mother used to tell Faramir and I a story about the dawn. She said it was a rosy-fingered maiden, the herald of the day, and that she would not walk in lands where they could not marvel at her beauty. They do not marvel at beautiful things in Mordor – and Dawn does not walk there."

"My mother told me many stories, too, but none about the Dawn."

"It's strange – I can't remember any of the others now. I was probably too busy filling my head with tales of great heroes and adventures, and wishing I could ride out with the likes of them."

This seemed to trigger something in Aragorn's memory, and he smiled. "Have you not heard? The men are saying we have a great hero with us on this journey. Boromir Foeshaker, they call him. His horn is like the screaming of the eagles, and his sword does not falter."

Boromir laughed, and the sound rang eerie in the empty air. "Who told you that?"

"Does it matter? Your men have a profound respect for you. They would follow you to whatever end you lead them."

"Your men," Boromir corrected. "You must think of them as your men – always! You are their king!"

"Just because you have given me first drink at the banqueting table, and found me beautiful armor, and have buckled a great sword about my waist, and have given me charge of an army does not make me a king," Aragorn corrected. "It is a title I must earn, and that at the edge of a sword."

"You were a king before I did all that," the younger man assured him. "And you have earned the title a hundred times over! Since I first met you, you have been kingly, though perhaps I did not see it at first. Look at these men, Aragorn! They did not come merely to say they rode with Boromir! Many of them have done that their whole lives! They came to say they stood their ground with the King Returned. That they fought for him, and bled for him, and, aye, died for him. And you must uphold that trust."

"Even if it is only Aragorn that leads them, and not the new Isildur come out of legend, as some of them seem to think?"

"Especially if it is only Aragorn. Him I would follow to the end of all things. I'm not sure who this Boromir Foeshaker is, but I must make sure I keep him close by me in the fray today."

Aragorn nodded, drawing his cloak around him. "We should be off soon. We have many miles to go yet."

Boromir gathered his own cloak as he stood up to find the watch captains, and have them sound the horn-call to arms. Unwittingly, his gaze tracked south, to the dim outline of the White Mountains in the distance, to where the heights ended and trickled down to a city he could not see.

_I must be here now, _he reminded himself. _I must be here, and not with her. I hope she understands that._

* * *

The clouds were rolling in – there would be no more sun-warmed dreams for Rhoswen. She gathered her thoughts together and wiped her sweaty palms on the sides of her gray healer's robe, and went back to her work.

The air was growing colder, now that the sun had left, and Rhoswen remembered Éowyn had taken no cloak with her. She gathered up a shawl from where it had been carelessly thrown in Éowyn's chamber, and went to go find them in the garden.

As she had thought, both of them looked eastwards – and it seemed Éowyn already had a cloak, a heavy blue mantle chased with stars plucked out in silver thread and bits of crystal. It made the Shieldmaid look radiant, queenly, even, another Varda Star-kindler come to earth, and softened her stance as no robe had been able to do. She still stood tall and ready, looking out over the Pelennor, but her shoulders were not thrown back as though she expected to draw her sword, nor did her head track the plain mercilessly with a commander's gaze. She merely watched, eyes fixed out on the horizon. Faramir stood close, his legs stronger than he had given her to believe, for he was standing under his own power. It seemed they were talking, in such low tones that Rhoswen could not be sure of what they said.

But slowly, Faramir stepped closer, and Rhoswen saw one of Éowyn's hands slither out of her cloak, to be caught in one of Faramir's. They stepped closer still, and for all her skill Rhoswen could not say for certain who leaned upon whom and gave the stronger arm. A warm surge of love coursed through her, and she stepped away from the stair leading down into the garden.

They would want to be alone, and Rhoswen would not gainsay that – there was other work to be done, but she could not work here. The blood was beating at her temples again. _I wish to keep my own watch, too_, she realized. But there were few gardens that looked east. She would have to find some other vantage point.

The halls of the King's House were silent, most of the servants gone, most of the guards on their way to Mordor. The palls of silence hung deeply and heavily here, with no footsteps to break them, and no voices to blunt their edge. Rhoswen wrapped the shawl around her own shoulders, suddenly feeling the chill more strongly as she walked through the Great Hall and past the empty black Steward's Chair. The sight of it gave her pause, and she drew up short, her mind's eye drawing a man into the chair's cold confines, stooped and saddened by a life spent waiting for something he did not think would come.

There had been no body to wash and dress, no corpse to mourn over. Denethor, Ecthelion's son had simply seemed to wink out of existence. Some of the city knew of it, the manner of his death, but would not speak of it, compelled by some forbidding memory to remain silent.

It seemed a fitting end for him, the grim man who had ever kept his cutting words as his shield.

_We have won, you know_, Rhoswen thought to herself, focusing on the empty chair as if it still contained the man she always remembered there. _Despite your best efforts, we have won. Even if they all die out there, we have the victory of it, because we loved, and hoped, and endured, and you hated, and despaired, and died. If you could see your sons now! How your heart would have leapt for them – if you ever had a heart to move so._

They were cold words, and ones she never would have spoken to him in life. She was remembering, now, why the cloak of Éowyn's looked familiar – it had been Finduilas's cloak, one of a merry multitude of treasures her ladies had painstakingly saved for that far-off day when her sons would want something to remember their mother by. Rhoswen had no picture of her to draw upon, except perhaps the faces of Imrahil her brother and Ivriniel her sister, but she knew that Finduilas was smiling, somewhere in the depths of the past.

And it gave her hope, such hope as she had never had before.

The wind was buffeting wildly out along the Court of the Fountain, and the White Tree seemed to sway a little with each passing gust, creaking a little as it wavered. Here there were still guards to keep their watch, their white plumed helmets catching the wind and lending them a less-than-dignified air as the feathers struggled against the current. Rhoswen's hair whipped and crackled around her face in the wind, and she struggled to keep it out of her eyes, finally teasing her curls away from her face. The sky was dark, and in the east the great Shadow loomed, horizonless and vast, threatening to creep ever closer, perhaps even swallow the city whole.

_I come from the sea, and know the strength of a wave, _Rhoswen reminded herself, going to the edge of the stone parapet and looking out over the city and the plain beyond._ I am no reed that bends in the wind_. _I am the rock the waves break upon. I know the strength of the wind and I yet endure._

_I am not weak, and I __do__ dwell in the sight of the Shadow._

There was a strange cry floating in the wind, like a hungry child mewling for its mother's breast. First faint, and then gone. Rhoswen wondered what desperate mother was forgetting her child's need. _Or perhaps the child has no mother any longer, and that is why it cries, _she thought to herself.

Yet – there it was again! Louder, and more plaintive!

"Lady." The voice was sudden, and Rhoswen was unprepared for it, her skin nearly jumping free of her body at the sound. It was one of the Fountain Guards, the man nearest to her, his voice nearly lost behind the black scarf that hid his lips. "Lady," he said again, stepping away from his post, his spear going slack. "Can you not hear that?"

And suddenly the sound became unmistakable. A great keening, mournful wail, a shriek of pain and agony so loud that none in the city could mistake it now for the sound of a mortal child. Instinctively, Rhoswen's eyes searched the sky, looking for one of the fell beasts whose steeds had made such cries, but there was no great winged shadow there - only the deep darkness of the clouds of Mordor. But that was not all - great jolts of lightening were issuing forth from the clouds, which had begun to roll and boil like the sea, spinning, collapsing in upon themselves. There was a crack like thunder, and she felt the earth shake, even through the bones of the city, as if some great piece of stone had fallen from the heavens, the keening wail cutting off in the midst of its agony.

And then, just as suddenly, all was silent. The wind died down. No living creature stirred.

The city beneath them was as still as death, the people waiting with one mind, eyes fixed on the horizon. The ever-present clouds in the east began to clear.

_What has happened?_ Rhoswen thought to herself, watching what had always been a dark front begin to break, light shining through to dark places beyond the Ephel Duath.

"Do you think it is over?" the Guard of the Fountain asked, and Rhoswen tore her eyes away from the eastern mountains to look at him, still distracted by all that she had seen. Between his helmet and the black scarf covering his face, his eyes were vivid and alive, and full of fear and the unknown, and their isolation in his face made them seem all the more real and desperate.

"I...I do not know," she admitted, her eyes drawing back to the east again, still confused by what they saw. Yes, that was the clouds parting, and the shadow moving, and the earth still once more. On the wind she thought she heard the echos of great shouts and cheers, and the tramp and bustle of many fleeing feet.

But what tricks will a desperate mind play on those fool enough to believe?

"I do not think anyone will know," she said again. "I think we must wait. And watch." _And pray_, she added silently, thinking of her father's body in the houses below, and Lucan's, and Theoden the King's, still and silent and cold in death, eyes shut, hands still, and it seemed as she remembered them that Boromir's face was with them, too, hands and face red with blood, a frightening specter. "Return to your post, guardsman," she said, her voice weak where it should have been strong. "All of you!" she said, her words cracking as she tried to assume an air of command. "We cannot know what it is, so we must wait, and keep our watches!"

She did not know if they moved to do as she bid them, for her knees were weak, and she sank down along the wall, catching herself on the way down and leaning against the cold, reassuring stone of the wall. If she listened close enough, she could hear shouts and laughter in the city below - the lights are out! The heavens move! We are saved!

Saved? Could it be so simple? Could it come so soon?

_And who has saved us?_ Rhoswen wondered, her head feeling faint. _Will they be alive to enjoy it?_

* * *

Whither has your beloved gone,

O fairest among women?  
Whither has your beloved turned,  
that we may seek him with you?

-Song of Soloman 6:1, RSV

* * *

It was two days before a rider reached them, confirming what many already thought true - the Eye of the enemy was put out, his tower destroyed, and his death made certain. The Weapons of the Enemy had perished. His hall had crumbled, and he would never raise another.

Rhoswen heard all of it in the houses, listening to the ecstatic, almost fevered young man whose eyes shone with such brilliance as he told his tale and whose body drooped with such fatigue after all the details had been related. How well he spoke of Aragorn, of the King who had returned, and how he had acquitted himself on the battlefield, alongside other mighty captains of the company, Lord Imrahil with his shining swan-helm and Éomer, whose eyes had flashed like lightning and whose battle-cry had seemed at times to be his sister's name.

And Boromir, bright, peerless Boromir, their own Captain-Heir who had always been Gondor's most tireless general, who was matched only by the King in enemies vanquished and shields splintered and whose sword seemed to smoke amidst the fray. He had been first to the breach, alongside the King, and it was because of both of them that they had their victory.

It was like a poem, the great and glorious stuff of legends – and would be hereafter, too – but they had heard enough for one day. The healers tucked the messenger into bed when they could manage to keep him from talking further, no one noticing that in all the hustle and bustle that the Lady Rhoswen had dropped back from the group, nearly falling into a waiting corner chair, weeping silently until she could cry no more. That was where Maireth found her hours later, cheeks still tracked with tears, finally sleeping soundly, without a dream in the world to trouble her.

* * *

The voice of my beloved! Behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

My beloved spoke, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.  
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

-Song of Solomon, KJV, 2:7-9, 11

* * *

I was going to keep going, but I think we'll leave it there for a while. You have no idea how many times I read The Song of Solomon to myself when writing this chapter. I have a sung version of the Second Chapter of the Song of Solomon done by the Boston Camerata on my Sundays playlist, and it wasn't until listening to it several times that I realized it was a perfect fit for this chapter, and more particularly the next one, where we'll see more of it. If you're not familiar with the rest, go and read it. The Bible has some beautiful poetry in it.

As does most of Tolkien's work. One of my favorite scenes in all of his writing is between Faramir and Eowyn in Return of the King, and I tried to at least get the spirit of it here. I used one line directly - I hope the Tolkien Estate will not grudge me that - and the visual cues in their second meeting are, a discerning reader will note, nearly an exact parallel to the movie.

There are two versions of Rhoswen in my head right now – the quiet, lovely, sensible Rhoswen and the bright, passionate, reckless Rhoswen who behaves a little more like Lottie does. I think we've seen these both sides of her at different points in the story, and now the reckless side wants to take over and run rampant. We'll see how that works in the next chapter.

(I think my reckless side might take over, too, if I knew my husband was coming home from certain death and I wanted to have cute, beautiful babies with him. But I could be wrong.)

Reviews always appreciated – and returned, too, I'm trying to get back into that habit again. Been reading a lot in the Hobbit realm lately and I want some love for my little Hobbit fic, too, if you've got time. There is a little dwarfess named Idunn who is threatening to take off with all my free time.


	33. Chapter 33

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.

As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.  
As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons.

I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.  
He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.

I charge you, O you daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.

The voice of my beloved! Behold, he cometh, leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.

My beloved spoke, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away.  
For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

-Song of Solomon, KJV, 2:1-4, 7-9, 11

* * *

As the Men of the West moved southward, better news came, that casualties were low and that none of the captains were lost. That they would camp outside of the city until provision could be made for them inside the walls. That they were bringing back with them heroes of great reknown who had taken some other road and helped gain the great victory.

They would camp at Osgiliath, a company of men near eight thousand strong, in need of all the gear and trappings of an army at rest - tents and rope and provisions and the thousands of other things they had not needed marching forward into battle, but would certainly now need marching back. And there were other things, too, that Rhoswen gathered, carpets and chairs for her lord's comfort, rich robes so that they would not rest longer than needed in their battle array, ewers and plates and basins for water.

When she could send no more supplies, she sent people, healers and clerks and heralds, masters of ceremony to plan the king's coronation, washerwomen and cooks to sustain them all. And so a little city grew, outside the ruined walls of the City of Stars. There they waited, for the city to be cleared, for the preparations to be carried out in full, for the right time to come. Roads to Osgiliath that had not been used regularly in an age became thriving paths again, bringing all the traffic of a thriving market-town with them, tradesmen and crafters and even some of the farmers whose homes and villages had been desolated by the passing of Sauron's host, wondering if the land of Ithilien was as good as it was spoken to be. It was a city filled with a happy kind of waiting, and some bore it better than others.

Men with families in the city were encouraged – goaded, even – to return home as often as they could be spared. But for the captains, a respite from work was not so forthcoming. Boromir had excused himself from a trip home, quite afraid that if he went he would not easily come back again. He had sent word to Rhoswen, begging her to come, and she had replied back, her words on paper all duty and understanding and, behind it all, deep longing. She could not leave the City – there was too much for her to do. And as if to remind him of his own duty, she sent the symbols of the Stewardship to him – the scepter, and the chain of office.

A ring, too, there should have been, a black, eight-sided stone cased in silver, but that had perished with Denethor, a fact for which Boromir was glad. He did not think he could easily wear such a piece of jewelry again.

And so he held his own little court, meting out justice while Aragorn watched from a smaller chair behind his steward's, the two men conferring privately when the charge was very great. They had not planned this – it merely happened, as natural as breathing. The captains of the camp had brought forward a man accused of lightening measures of flour while Aragorn and Boromir were in private council, and Aragorn had retreated to a further corner of the tent to watch the Steward take his chair and listen carefully to all parties. It was not something Boromir was accustomed to doing, but he was finding that he enjoyed now more than he had as child_. I have had enough of war, and campaigning. Give me a measure of peace now- and a full measure at that._

They had given over another tent to serve as courtroom, filled with some of the nicer furniture, a heavy oaken table for the clerks and a tall-backed chair for the Steward, with a serviceable carpet below. His own personal tent was just as nice, if not even more so, made of heavy embroidered silk, some remnant or pattern from days long gone by when the king and his retinue would need accommodation to watch tournaments or travel on progress throughout Gondor. And it was in this tent that he was now, still working, court for the day being finished.

"My lord," Boromir's squire, an excitable young soldier named Narthion, nearly knocked over one of his lord's commendably stable camp chairs as he barreled into the tent. "My lord, there is…there is someone here to see you."

Boromir looked up from a proclamation one of his clerks was copying and followed his squire outside, looking around the bustle of a thriving army camp until his eyes fell on the woman in their midst, leading her own horse, her black cloak whipping around her ankles so as to partially obscure the pattern of white roses around its outer edge.

But there could be no obscuring who she was. Not now, and not ever to him.

He was so surprised at seeing Rhoswen here that he could not even move to meet her. She smiled. "Will you not take my horse?" she asked kindly, meeting the young man's awestruck gaze. "He has carried me far today, and could do with a drink and a good measure of your best hay."

Remembering himself, Boromir suddenly sprung to life again, motioning Narthion to take the horse's bridle and moving forward to greet her properly. "Why are you here?" he asked, once she was in his arms, touched that she should come and a little taken aback that he had no better place to show her than the muddy roads of an army encampment. But before all the words could come out of his mouth, she was embracing him, kissing him senselessly and shamelessly until finally she had her head pillowed against his shoulder, and he had her answer to his question. _I came for you_, every quiver and muscle seemed to cry out, and his cried back in echo. He did not think he had ever missed a person so much before.

"I must not cry," she said, almost to herself, before she looked at him. "It would not be fitting."

"My lady can do as she pleases," Boromir responded, cradling her face in both hands.

"It pleases the lady to be here, with her husband. I would…speak…with you." She glanced sideways as she said it, and Boromir thought that the word _speak_ was not really what she meant to say.

"You might have sent for me," he reminded her softly, kissing her brow as he did so. "You might have ordered me to come home. I would have made some excuse. A commander's bed in the field is rich, but it is still a bed in a field." He reminded her in soft, near-silent whispers.

"But I live in a city of women, and women_ talk_." Rhoswen raised her eyebrows at him to impress upon him exactly what kind of talking her city full of women would do. Boromir heard a boisterous burst of laughter from a nearby campfire and something inside of him winced.

"And men don't?"

"Not like women," Rhoswen countered, taking his arm and steering him back inside his tent. "Women will speculate and gossip and begin counting the days until your baby begins to show, and whisper about what shame the Lady is bringing down on the house of the Stewards, drawing him to her bed so early in the afternoon, and how the Lord Boromir was ever an honorable and dutiful man before that hussy ensnared him. Men will laugh, and shout that they wish they had such a brazen woman for their own, and think of home, and go back about their business."

Boromir laughed at her assessment, but made no move to stop her guidance inside, nor the steady stream of kisses she was eking out of him. "Where do your women think you are now?"

"Sick," Rhoswen said with a smile that might almost be mischievous. "Maireth and Faeldes and Faramir will make it so. I have been working too hard these past weeks."

"Oh, too hard indeed. We must stop that."

"Yes, we must. At once." She had a bold, uncautious smile on her lips now. "My dreams have played strange tricks on me since I knew of your return. They ask …wild things of me."

She drew close, brushing her hand along the front of his leg, and Boromir, forgetting himself for a moment, remembered where he was with a jolt. "Sweeting, I have not bathed," he said softly.

"I don't care," she said equally softly, her voice still in absolute earnest.

"You will soon enough," her husband parried. He raised his voice to call for the squire, coming back from tying up his lady's horse. "Narthion, a pan of washing water in my tent, please, as quick as you can. And a little food, after that, for the Lady Rhoswen. She has ridden hard in hunger," he said, glancing at Rhoswen to see that her _hunger_ was not so apparent to others as it was to him.

He sat her down in one of his camp chairs, shooing the clerks from their places with promises that they could return for his inspection later. Narthion came with the wide, shallow pannikin, slopping water over the sides as he set it down on Boromir's basin-stand, and his lord quickly stripped off surcoat and shirt to splash water over his face and scrub at the everyday grime around his neck, his hands and forearms. Boromir reached for a towel only to hit empty air - the squire left as quickly as he had come, and nervously, too, and when Boromir turned to look for him, he saw why. Narthion thought he might have help of a different sort with his bathing.

Rhoswen was slowly undressing – a lace there, a garment there, meticulously folding them as she went. She was down to her long white shift now, a much more modest garment and not so thin as the one she had worn beneath her dress of gold, and she was busying herself with tidying his tent – rearranging the papers on his tables, making the bed, moving some of the dirty laundry into a waiting basket. It was charmingly domestic, and as Rhoswen bent over again to retrieve a fallen quill, her shift altered its lines to illustrate the curve of her backside in fine profile.

Her presence had lit a fire, and her kisses had stoked it, but the sight of her half-clothed broke any pretense of patience he might have put on. In three strides he was on the other side of the tent, lifting her up and carrying her to his modest camp bed, stripping as quickly as he could, shoving her shift up over her hips. It was unartful and quick, full of desperate desire, but when the blaze had cleared from his eyes, she was not crying, nor hurt, nor any of a dozen different words a better-read man than he was might have used to describe her on that night before the march to Mordor. Thoughtful might have been a better word, gratified another.

"Was that wild enough for your dreams?" Boromir asked, his breathing ragged, trying recover himself as he eased off of her. Rhoswen looked at him and smiled, and then bit her lip, as if she were considering telling him something she was not sure he would approve of, and finally nodded. "A little too much pause in that for me," Boromir accused, and Rhoswen laughed, curling up closer to his shoulder and resting her cheek there.

"Do you remember teaching me how to play merels, at the End Year, with Erun and Hirluin?"

Boromir felt himself go a little cold at the mention of Rhoswen's brother, who was probably in camp as they spoke and would not take kindly to his sister being romanced in a tent like a camp bawd, but he remembered that if Erun did come, he could safely say that it was she who had sought him out. After the momentary terror of that thought had subsided, he found did remember many, many games of merels sitting next to a very comfortable fire.

"I remember a lot of games, and a whole afternoon spent at the teaching of them," he said truthfully. Rhoswen smiled at him, and sat up a little, moving to rest her chin on his chest so that she might look at him as she spoke.

"Then consider that I am new to this game, and you must give me time to learn it. Though I doubt I will master it in an afternoon."

This time, it was Boromir's turn to smile. _Is that a challenge, sweeting?_ "Will you not, Rhos? You were a quick study with merels," he observed, shifting ever so slightly so she might have to move with him to keep her perch on his chest. As he had predicted, she moved, drawing her legs closer to him and sliding a little further onto his chest.

"Yes, this game is different, and not quite so simple," she parried back.

"Is it?" Boromir asked. "We have…two players, and… a simple board." His hand skimmed along her back, warm and inviting, and she moved still further, moving one leg over his own. She knew what he was doing now, and she did not stop him.

"And the object of the game?" she asked, her eyes a little lustrous in the half light of the tent, studying him with the tiniest of smiles on her face.

"To take all your opponents' pieces away and have control of the board," Boromir said with a wide grin, taking both of her hands and sitting up, forcing her to sit up with him. He caught at her lips, distracting her until she did not realize where she sat.

It was a supreme distraction for Rhoswen, but for Boromir as well, and, too caught up in their game, neither of them saw the flap of the tent move to open and admit a small person in black livery, too preoccupied with something outside to look where he leapt.

"My lord, there is a –" the page, walking into the tent without warning, didn't even have time for a terrified squeak before his lord caught sight of him behind his very naked lady.

"Bergil, OUT!" Boromir roared, sending the boy running, probably to the far side of the camp and beyond. Sitting up and fuming at the space his squire had formerly occupied, the intrusion might have been a bucket of cold water for all the good it did their mood. "I'm going to murder that boy," he said angrily, running his hand through his hair as Rhoswen climbed off of him, gathering a sheet around herself and trying to calm her body down from the feverish pitch they had built to. For a moment, both of them were silent, listening to some muted but highly agitated words outside the tent. Then Rhoswen laughed.

"It sounds as though Narthion is doing that already," She said, cocking her head to listen to the torrent of angry words outside the tent. She sighed, and put on a half-hearted smile. "It was an honest mistake, my love, and doubtless he is just as embarrassed as we are." She studied him for a moment, watching him fume. "We cannot keep the world at bay forever."

"Can't we?" Boromir asked, innocently, capturing one of Rhoswen's hands and kissing the inside of her wrist. She slipped away from him, smiling at his efforts and shaking her head, and retrieved her chemise, slipping it over her head with a little shimmy of her hips and efficiently going to work at her hair, tying it back with a thin band she reclaimed from wherever it had fallen on the carpet.

"Your uncle will be looking for you, and Aragorn. Especially when he finds out I've come with the coronation robes. Lessons," she said matter-of-factly, "will have to wait."

"Ah," Boromir said unhappily, massaging the back of his neck and casting his glance about the tent for his own undergarments. Rhoswen, most obligingly, threw them at him when she found them, and both of them set to the task of trying to wipe away the remnants of the whirlwind passion that had just blown the two of them into bed. And none too soon, either – Imrahil's voice could be heard outside the tent, and Narthion's, too, apologizing, hemming, hawing (Boromir could just see his squire's face turning beet-root red) and trying, unsuccessfully, to say without saying that his lord was busy at the moment and not to be disturbed. "Uncle, you can come in," the Steward said loudly, striding over to the tent flap and sticking his head through so as to make his point even clearer.

The Prince of Dol Amroth followed him inside. "That young man of yours needs to be taught how to dissemble, Boromir, he did not seem to be able to – Ah." He saw Rhoswen, and the young woman nodded, just as serene as if she were in full court regalia and not just her chemise with her hair down and her nephew's bed in an unholy disarray.

"Uncle," She said, pointedly using the familiar title with a dignified nod.

"Niece," Imrahil returned with just as much dignity and implication. "I trust your journey here was uneventful."

"It was, thank you," Rhoswen said. "I will leave you to your councils – my lords." She looked deliberately at Boromir as if to say 'Play nicely' and looked ready to leave when Imrahil stopped her.

"You need not leave, Lady, I was just about to pull Boromir away to my tent for another meeting. We will gone but an hour – perhaps a little more. Then I will return him to you." Rhoswen nodded. "I had a letter from Heldirwen and Lothiriel," He added, while his nephew dressed. "They should be in the city soon, for the coronation."

"I shall look out for them."

Imrahil nodded, and stepped out of the tent with a now-fully clothed Boromir. He looked curiously at his nephew, and the younger man bridled and pointedly said nothing.

"Marriage suits you both," the Prince of Dol Amroth pronounced with a smile. "But not a word to my sons of this, or we shall be overrun with wives and sweethearts."

"Agreed," the younger Gondorian pronounced quickly, imagining all sorts of laughter and comments from his cousins and following his uncle down the row of tents to whatever business needed deciding now.

True to his word, the meeting was scarce an hour before business was complete. Boromir walked back to his tent alone to see the cooking fire blazing merrily and Narthion hard at work, assisted in his duties, none too graciously, by a young woman Boromir remembered seeing in the Houses with Rhoswen. Both young people stopped bickering as their lord drew closer, bowing and curtseying as he went past and falling back into their argument as soon as the tent-flap fell in behind their lord.

"Were you hoping for a quick dinner?" He asked Rhoswen, who was making herself very comfortable at his desk and answering some correspondence of her own, it seemed. "Those two look ready to rip each other limb from limb."

"I have no doubt dinner will be done to perfection at the appointed hour, and that your squire and my maid will reach an understanding of some sort or another," Rhoswen said evenly, rising from his chair and presenting herself to be kissed. "But it will be another hour before the bread is baked," she said, with the air of one commenting on the weather, and Boromir allowed himself to gape at his young wife a moment before pulling her into his lap and laughing.

_What a little thorny bramble you are, to trap me so!_ "Let us wait while the bread bakes, and you will tell me a little of these wild stories my cousins are telling me about Dol Amroth."

Dinner was a long time in coming, and there was plenty of time to share of Dol Amroth, and her doings in the Houses of Healing, the substance of a hundred evening fireside conversations they had not been able to have. Narthion brought in wine, and more wood for the brazier, and, eventually, dinner, though some was cold and some blaze-hot at serving. It would have bored Boromir to tears, once, but now it was enough that he was in the same room as her, the same circle of light, and he could see the expression of her face rise and fall as she spoke of riding to the hunt with his cousins, and the End-Year feast, and the ridiculous price Faramir had paid to ransom her from Amrothos.

"So you were well-treated there," Boromir was saying, as Rhoswen finished telling him all about Ivriniel and the courts of love.

"None could treat me better," she assured him, running her hand along the outside of his leg as if he were a cat she were comforting by petting it. A sparkle caught his eye, and he caught her hand and let the light play along her ring. Rhoswen smiled, eventually withdrawing her fingers.

"Do you like it? It was a lover's gift, from a prince. He promised to come back for me, after a long journey." Her eyes sparkled playfully, and Boromir raised his eyebrows.

"And has he come back yet, Lady?"

The mischief left her eyes. "I think so," She said with an air of finality. "Though his next gift after this was not so courteous. He rode away to battle, and left me alone. I am thinking of making the poets write him out of the lover's histories."

Boromir laughed. "Is that a real punishment, Rhos? Shall you bring me up on charges before your Court of Love for doing my duty?"

"I am in deadly earnest!" Rhoswen threatened, though there was a smile on her lips as she said it. "I have better credit with the poets than you do. Boromir Foeshaker may well be the stuff of future epics, but the White Rose is already well written of."

"Tell me of them," Boromir begged. If only so I may hear your voice again.

Rhoswen smiled and drew her gaze away as if suddenly bashful, thinking hard. Then there came over her face a smile like a slow sunrise, and her eyes took on a little bit of their formerly lustrous hue. "Have you heard the story about the prince's deer?" she asked, her smile wide and just as mischievous again.

"You know I have not."

"It is about the White Hart – the deer that will give you wishes if you catch it. An elusive beast, and wild."

"Wild," Boromir repeated, his eyes following her towards the brazier, which she kindled a little more life into, and then she moved around to the back of his chair. His face tilted up to follow, and his shoulders relaxed a little as her hands found a perch there, her thumbs drawing lazy circles at the base of his neck.

"Who wished to hunt, I know where is a hind –But as for me, alas, I may no more." Her voice was warm and soft, sweetly slipping inside his ears – seductively close, and yet, at the same time, far away. A seductive, heavy pause - He could hear the blood pounding at his temples, there was such silence in the tent now. It was not merely a poem she read him, but a challenge – and his blood burned to hear it. He could hear the slow slide of a knot being undone – her girdle being taken off. "This vain travail hath worried me so sore I am of them that furthest come behind." Her voice drew farther away, and he turned to watch her, stepping softly back towards his bed – their bed, her dress in loose folds, her hands picking at the lacings.

"Yet—" she paused again, catching his eye and crooking her finger, "-may I by no means my wearied mind draw from the deer, but as she fleeth afore, fainting I follow." She looked over her shoulder, inviting him again, and he came as he was bid, curious and growing warm, despite the evening's spring chill. "I hold off, therefore, since in a net I seek to hold the wind." She paused, grasping and drawing him close to her, smiling and laying his hands over her hips. "He who can hunt, I put him out of doubt, as well as I, may spend his time in vain. For graven, in mithril, in letters plain there is written, her fair neck round about, "Tarry me not; Boromir's I am, and wild for to hold, though I seem tame." Her fingertips skimmed along her collarbones, as though tracing the path of an imaginary chain, and in their wake he so wanted his lips to follow, and yet he could not. He was transfixed, his voice lost somewhere in a desire-filled ether.

_My seeming tame lover. My little rose in the briars. My wife!_ "Enough of poetry, Rhos," Boromir ordered, his voice running a little towards ragged. "I have a mind to hunt a deer."

"With what? With your sword?" Her eyes were deep and wicked now.

_Oh, my sweet, chaste rose, how they sharpened your brambles! But I can play that game as well, for all that I am a few years out of practice._ "A sword is good for killing men – a spear does better for the prince's deer."

"And have you your spears with you?"

"I need only the one for this, and it is sharp enough. Or must you test the edge?"

* * *

Narthion poked at the fire outside his lordship's tent and tried not to think too hard about what was going on behind the thick brocaded walls behind him. He wished he had a girl – no, not a girl, even, a lady, like Lady Rhoswen. He'd been too dumb-struck to speak when she came into camp today, too lost to even remember his manners and take her horse. She'd had to remind him, kindly, and Lord Boromir after that, too. You could get a girl in camp here, for a silver penny, but a lady – well, the Lady Rhoswen was worlds away from the drabs over on the other side of camp, and worth a deal more. And she smiled, which the bawds didn't do unless you paid them, but that was a different kind of smile. He wanted someone to smile at him like the Lady smiled at Lord Boromir.

A man in a vibrant blue cloak drew close to the watchfire for a moment, listening to the murmurs and rustles in the tent behind and smiling a little. "A fine night for singing, don't you think?" he asked, and Narthion, seeing no better option, gestured to the log opposite him. The man sat down, stretching out his leg like it pained him and unslinging the large package he'd had slung over his shoulder. Untying the knots at the top of the bag, a large and beautifully buttery colored lute revealed itself.

"You're Iorlas! The Lady's poet."

"Aye, I am that," Iorlas said, stopping at one particularly badly muffled sound of pleasure from inside the tent. His face fell momentarily, and then he picked his expression up again. "But she has many poets, and many men to read her poetry, and I am the least of them."

"Mordor take him for a liar if he tries to tell you that again," the girl Thariel said boldly, coming back from the waterbutts where she'd been washing the dinner dishes. She set the wooden crate of dishes down with an almighty huff, just managing to cover another badly muffled moan, which she seemed not to notice but which made Narthion color a bit. "He's the best of the Lady's poets, and the better of any man in Minas Tirith."

"Now, tread carefully with that, Lady Thariel, they say the Lord Imrahil's brought his harpers with him, and I know better than most they're finer company than me."

"Well, they're not here now - and any-road, Narthion's got no one to compare you to anyway."

"At least introduce me to the man before you slight him, Lady Thariel. And you a student of Lady Rhoswen's," Iorlas observed.

Thariel bristled, but she did as she was bid. "Iorlas, allow me to introduce to you Narthion, the Lord Boromir's squire. Narthion, allow me to introduce to you Iorlas, the Lady Rhoswen's chief poet."

"It is my very good pleasure to meet you, Narthion. The Lord Boromir was my commander, once. Your service must recommend yourself very highly if you are given a squireship with him."

Narthion smiled half-heartedly and poked at the fire a little more. "It was more of an expedience, my lord," he mumbled, thinking of all the other young men who grumbled when they were passed over simply because Narthion happened to be standing closest to the Captain-Heir when he walked into the soldier's mess asking for someone to help squire for both himself and for the Lord Aragorn. He didn't feel ready for it, and he was daily reminded of what skills he was lacking. Some of the better born soldiers would have been able to talk smoothly to Prince Imrahil when he had come looking for the Lord Boromir earlier, but it had almost been beyond him not to give away that his master was busy with a woman. Lying wasn't his strong suit, and he was beginning to think he would need to practice a good deal more. Especially if the Lady was planning on staying long.

"Now, now, I am no Lord. Iorlas only, or Master Iorlas, if you must." Iorlas nodded. "You'll grow into it, then! Look at Thariel, here – she is only attendant to the Lady Rhoswen these past two months, and already she has all the airs and graces of a lady of born rank!"

Thariel bristled again at this, but could not easily rebuke him without owning to the fault he accused her of, and so contented herself with putting away the freshly washed dishes.

"How about a song?" Iorlas asked, kindly trying to divert the easily nettled young woman. This seemed to please her, for she did not scowl quite as much as she began packing the dishes back into their box. The poet experimented for a few moments with the strings and their sound, and launched into a song Narthion was sure he had heard before, though he did not know where.

"Come again! sweet love doth now invite  
Thy graces that refrain  
To do me due delight,  
To see, to hear, to touch, to kiss, to die,  
With thee again in sweetest sympathy.

All the night, my sleeps are full of dreams,  
My eyes are full of streams.  
My heart takes no delight  
To see the fruits and joys that some do find  
And mark the storms are me assigned."

A loud half-word emerged from the tent, and Thariel blushed so deep a crimson Narthion thought she might catch on fire. So she had heard them earlier, too! The troubadour's voice crackled a little, and the notes from his throat died quicker than those from his lute.

"You'll have to forgive me, Master Narthion, I'm in no fit state for singing tonight. Your pardon if I take my leave of you. I've remembered urgent business elsewhere." And, quickly packing the lute, off he went again. Narthion stared after him for a bit, wondering if it had been the sound of his lord and lady's lovemaking that had unnerved him so. He was no stranger himself to half-meanings and the wink-and-elbow language of the barracks room, and he supposed a person could read the various words of the poet's song – come again, die, the fruits and joys – with a dash of ribaldry, but he did not think that was what had caused the poet's discomfort. Though there was a little ache in his own legs that was beginning to get a bit unbearable.

He looked up from the fire to see Thariel studying him and his confused expression. Had she noticed – no, he didn't think so, the light was low. "He loves her, you know." Thariel said suddenly. "The Lady Rhoswen. He loves her. That's why he writes the poems he does, because he cannot have her."

Then that would explain the leaving. "And you like reading those poems?" Narthion asked, trying to forget about the ache in his legs.

Thariel shrugged. "One day someone will write poems like that for me. I like to read them and think about him coming for me. One day. But not today." She shrugged and shook her head. "Nor any time soon, I think. When the king is crowned and we go back to the city, maybe then." Her packing finished, she stood up and brushed her skirt off. "I'm for bed. Make sure you bank that fire down when you're done. I don't want to wake up in the middle of the night with the camp burning down."

"Like I would," Narthion spat back, injured that she would expect such a childish thing from him. He knew how to bank a fire well enough. She scowled back at him and stepped into her own tent with a snap.

She was pretty, Thariel, at the end of it. Tongue on her like a viper, and a slap to rival Sauron's fist, but pretty. He'd write a poem to her, if he thought she'd have it, or if he was any good at writing poems. But the Lord Boromir, now, he was terrible at writing, all the clerks said so. And he had got the Lady Rhoswen, who lived for poems.

Love was so hard. How did everyone manage it?

* * *

I'm not sure where Narthion the Squire came from, but I needed a little bit of comic levity in there, and a way to end without any pillow talk (because we got enough of that this chapter, thanks) and the Punch-and-Judy routine that he and Thariel started out of nowhere while they were cooking dinner turned into this bit at the end. I think we've all been where he is, though – teenagers trying to figure out how the world works. He and Thariel also serve nicely as sort of a foil for Rhoswen in terms of how much growing up she's done, I think. I hope.

So, there is reckless Rhoswen for you. She needed it, and I think I did too, a little. And I am sure Boromir did not mind being so ill-used at all.

And now that they have had their little respite, next chapter they can get back to their serious business – letting all of you know how Boromir got away from Death. I can tell you that Rhoswen has a lot of questions on this subject and I'm sure you do, too.

I can't say why these chapters have gotten finished quicker, but credit should probably go to the lovely cellotlix, whose pace at updating her Hobbit fanfic is giving me a streak of shame a mile wide. It's a wonderful story and you should go check her writing out.

Reviews always appreciated. I need everyone to keep me on track so I don't fall off the wagon here. I'm reaching the end of my pre-prepared material, and I'm beginning to feel a bit lost.


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 34

_'What news from the West, O wandering wind, do you bring to me tonight?__  
Have you seen Boromir the Tall by moon or by starlight?__  
'I saw him ride over seven streams, over waters wide and grey,__  
I saw him walk in empty lands until he passed away__  
Into the shadows of the North, I saw him then no more.__  
The North Wind may have heard the horn of the son of __Denethor._

* * *

How should all this be told?—

All the sad sum of wayworn days,—

Heart's anguish in the impenetrable maze;

And on the waste uncoloured wold

The visible burthen of the sun grown cold

And the moon's labouring gaze?

The Stream's Secret, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

* * *

It was very late in the day when Rhoswen awoke again, rolling over in bed with a particularly odd sensation in her hand, the creeping skin that came when one slept on an appendage and deprived it of blood. But what was more strange to her was that she rolled into someone - a large, fair-haired someone who seemed to have magically appeared in her bed while she was sleeping.

But then she remembered this wasn't her bed – it was his, out at Osgiliath. She had come to see him, to be with him. And now they were here, in bed.

And it had been very, very good to be there.

He must have been tired, too, because she did not stir him, only caused him to turn over in his slumber. The White Rose smiled. "Good morning to you, too, husband," she said blearily, propping herself on one elbow and smiling sleepily at Boromir as he slept on. When they had first slept together all those days ago, before the battle, it had been an occasion of haste, and she had not seen the nakedness of his body as she could see it now, the scars and the memories carved in his skin. And even without the familiar padding of his clothes she could see that he had lost weight, gone from the comfortable set of middle age to the thinner build of a man who has not eaten a good meal in a very long time. Lightly she let her fingers glide over the scars, mentally marking to herself where they had come from. Fresh bruises on his arms and chest, and a long, thin slice down one of his forearms. More bruises on his legs, and older wounds elsewhere, a knife-cut along his side and three evil looking arrow wounds in his chest, shots that looked as though they should have killed him, still a little pink and new and sharing space with a now-fading bruise, still a little purpled but yellowing away.

"Your fingers are cold," The Captain-Heir of Gondor rumbled sleepily, and Rhoswen pulled her fingers back with a start, not realizing they had lingered too long over the arrow wounds. "No, no, put that back," Boromir mumbled, reaching out a hand and fastening Rhoswen's hand back on his chest. "That's better."

"I thought you said my fingers were cold, my lord," Rhoswen said, sitting up a little bit to look down at Boromir's face.

"I'll warm them. Better cold fingers than none at all," Boromir murmured back, yawning and blinking a few times, rubbing his eyes to wake up. "Good morning, wife," he said finally, sitting up and kissing her on the lips, still very much asleep himself.

"Good morning, husband," Rhoswen said again. "And now that we have settled one debt, you may settle another," she said matter-of-factly, stroking his chest as if she might need to cajole him to something. Boromir looked as though he were about to object to something. "Where have you been?" Rhoswen asked plaintively, pointing to the arrow wounds and asking, however subtly, for the story.

Boromir looked down at his chest and the scars and made some small sound of acknowledgement, finally sitting up in bed and leaning his back against the pillows. "That is a long tale, Rhos," he said as if by way of warning.

"And someone, it seems, has brought us breakfast," Rhoswen replied, rising from the bed and carrying the waiting tray closer. "We should congratulate Nartion on his newfound stealth." Boromir chuckled and leaned over the sheets, pulling Rhoswen back into bed and nearly spilling the cup of water she had poured for him. He drained it dry and she calmly filled it again.

Thirst parched, he set the cup aside and sighed, and the tale was begun, a wild and wearying thing that began in Osgiliath and slowly wound its way up the Ered Nimrais, past the fabled fortress of Isengard and the slopes of the Misty Mountains, into an enchanted forest guarded by elven princes and highborn ladies of the White Elves long since passed out of legend. He remembered snowstorms, and mountain trolls, and miles of marching with boots that always seemed to have a pebble inside.

And he remembered the taint of jealousy, and greed, and the doom of Men, and it made his heart run cold to tell the story anew. When he tried to speak of the beast inside him, the consuming fire, he felt his words fail him, and he fell into chill silence, unable to speak. That was when Rhoswen gathered herself close and pillowed her head upon his shoulder, and kissed his lips and slowly, so slowly, with her warmth and kindness and knowing gaze, drew the story out of him, her eyes immovable, neither judging nor pitying. So he told it to her, every shame-filled inch of it, and she drank it up like the flame consumes the candle and burned it away.

And when he had finished remembering all that, he remembered waking up in a field of stars_._

* * *

_When he had closed his eyes there in the woody glade, the sun had been shining weakly through the trees, giving everything over to a pale, golden glow. But he had closed his eyes as the golden glow liquefied, and everything lost focus, and now he was opening his eyes again, and the world was black as night and stars covered the heavens._

_Where was he? Where had he been? Oh, yes, that was right, he had been on Amon Hen. The Orcs had been chasing Merry and Pippin, and he had fought them off. They had been running, but… he had been running, too. What had he been running from? Perhaps it did not matter. Why was he here, then, instead of there? He felt a throbbing in his chest, and sat up a little to see four great black bolts in his chest, the one closest to his heart throbbing in pain. Oh, to take it out, to be free of this searing pain -_

"_Touch it not!" A lady's voice said sharply, and Boromir pulled his hand back. She was standing in front of him, glowing like a pillar of fire, and her voice sounded as though it came from far, far away. She smiled at him, and the pain lessened. Carefully, she knelt next to him, and, laying her hand on the first bolt, pulled it free. It turned to mist in her hand, and this she did with the other two. The last bolt, the one nearest his heart, she left for a moment, and smiled at him with a look that made the stars in the heavens blaze in majesty, twinkling in her eyes. Clasping his hand, she pulled it free with a tidal wave of pain that made him cry out and open his eyes again on the sunny, wooded glade. _

_The light was different now – the sun had gone behind a cloud. Had some time passed? He had no way of knowing. And it was Aragorn, not a lady, who knelt over him with the last crossbow bolt in his hand, holding a pad of cloth over the still bleeding wound, a piece of what looked like an elven cloak._

"_I tried to take –" He felt his throat wheeze at the effort, parched and tired. But he could not remember what it was he had tried to take._

"_Do not speak," Aragorn said tersely, binding the piece of torn garment over the wound. "If we but give it a little time, it will clot on its own. The Lady's gifts often prove fortuituous at strange turns." _

_Boromir looked down at his chest and realized that underneath the cloth Aragorn had tied around his chest, the packet from the Lady Galadriel sat, the leather bathed in blood. His blood. Why had he been running? What had he been running from? The question haunted him. He had needed to get to Merry and Pippin, because they were in trouble. But they were always in trouble – why had this been different? Why had he not run with them? Why had he taken the arrows and not given a second thought to his own safety?_

"_I tried to take the ring from Frodo!" He gasped aloud, and it was as if a floodgate inside him had been knocked open. Aragorn looked at him, and in his eyes there was anger, and censure, and behind all that, great pity. And under this gaze, with all its majesty and command, Boromir began to weep. It had been a long time since he had cried over anything, but over this, now, it could not be helped. He felt rotten to his core, just as he had felt after he had accosted Rhoswen in the wheatfield all those many months ago, as if some great shadow had taken hold of him and used him for some dark purpose. Rhoswen might be able to forgive a youthful moment of forgetfulness in a field, but he had done more than that – he had imperiled the Ring-quest, endangered a friend, broken an oath. "You should have let me die!" he cried._

"_It was not I who saved you," Aragorn said briefly, and in his eye Boromir saw, for a brief flicker of a moment, a tear. The ranger glanced to Boromir's side, and Boromir's gaze followed his to the body lain next to his own, the still, glazed eyes of an elf-maid staring listlessly at him in death, a brief smile on her lips. It was her cloak that had bound him, her hand that had clasped his own. "Do not despoil her gift," the ranger said coldly. "Lie still, and let the Lady's herbs work."_

_Boromir laid back down, a sudden coldness in his chest, and let the tears clot at his eyes. Rinnelaisse was dead, nevermore to walk the greenwoods of her youth, or see the White City as he had promised she would do again. In spite of all he knew that she had done with her long life, Boromir was suddenly saddened that she would do no more with it, and that he, wretched, shamed, dishonored creature that he was, would live. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe slowly, his chest rising and falling with the bandages Aragorn had placed there, and in the silence of the woods, a sudden breeze whispered past his ear._

It was a gift.

_And suddenly behind his tears his mind was filled again with Rhoswen, heavy and round and full of life, and Boromir realized what this was – the elf-maid's gift to him. The gift of time. What did she know, that he did not, about his life? What could this possibly have gained her?_

_He tried to sit still, as Aragorn had said, and marshal his thoughts. He remembered their leave-taking at Lothlórien, and the looks that had passed between the Marchwarden Haldir and Rinnelaisse. Haldir had looked happy, and hopeful, but Rinnelaisse's face could only have been described as sad. Did she accept him, in the end? Was this her escape?_

_He did not think he would ever know._

"_They have taken the little ones," he said quietly to Aragorn. "I tried – I tried to stop them, I sounded the horn, but it was too little, and too late. They will have been overrun."_

"_Lie still," Aragorn said again. "We will have time enough to chase them when you are mended a little."_

"_I cannot let them die," Boromir plead with him, and hoped Aragorn understood what this meant to him. He might have betrayed Frodo, but he would not make that mistake a second time and abandon Merry and Pippin to the bloodlust of the Orcs._

_Aragorn looked at him, and his gaze was heavy with sorrow. "You will not," he said strongly. "You and I will see the White City again, and when we are finished with our work, no Shadow will fall there. The Tower Guard will take up their silver trumpets, and announce that the Lords of Gondor have returned."_

_And suddenly Boromir could see it all, the white towers and the silver trumpets and the watchers at the gate – there were banners hung from every tower and flowers in the air. A great multitude before them, and a great multitude behind, and Aragorn beside him, on his brow a great shining helmet ringed with gold, armored in the manner of the Triumphs of the kings of old…_

_The Triumph of the King._

"_And I will be able to tell my children and my grandchildren that I was there, as ba__ttle-brother and captain - to the King." Boromir said suddenly. Aragorn looked strangely at him, and the Steward's son smiled, with what he thought was hope, and slowly, so slowly, he watched Aragorn's face soften. Finally he clasped Boromir's hand close, and the Gondorian returned his shaking smile once more. Something about this death had changed Aragorn, too. Had she spoken to him before she had died, as Boromir and Aragorn were speaking now? "Now rest," the ranger said with gentleness in his voice. "Gimli and I must see to Rinnelaisse. When that is over, we must give chase."_

_Slowly, and with great effort, he picked up her body, her hair falling in a strangely fluid curtain while the rest of her body stayed at strange angles. Her fingertips were red with blood – whose blood? His own? Hers? He watched Aragorn carry her away, and his eyes fell towards the ground where she had been lying. Four arrows lay there, deadly black fletchings gleaming mutely in the half-light of the forest._

_The arrows that should have killed him._

_He could hear Gimli's voice inside his head, speaking several days earlier as they sat around their campfire and talked about the lady's gifts. Gimli had asked for – and been given! – three of the Lady Galadriel's luminous strands of hair. _I will set them in crystal, and they will be an heirloom of my house – a symbol of the friendship between the Mountain and the Wood.

_As these would now be a symbol between the City and the wood. No crystal could ever make these arrows beautiful, nor any iron box contain their cruelty. Were he to bury them here, still they would haunt him, and that he could not have. _I will set them above the hearthstone in my hall as one sets a mighty sword, or a trophy of battle. And they too shall be a symbol of friendship – and of debts unpaid, and un-payable.

_He closed his eyes, breathing for a few moments, deeply, in and out, in and out, testing the bandages at his chest and the way it felt to move with them. They could not delay any longer. If they were to find Merry and Pippin, they would need to leave soon, before the orcs gained too much distance._

_By the time he got to his feet and walked, ever so slowly, down to the shore, the arrows loose in his his gloved hands, Aragorn had already laid out the long body of Rinnelaisse, taking with him numerous orc swords and weapons of many kinds to lay on her bier, as befitted a warrior's tomb. "We have not wood enough to burn the body, nor stone to bury it," Aragorn said, when he saw Boromir's wondering gaze. "We must set her adrift in one of the boats. At least no orc creature will despoil her there."_

"_Perhaps she will yet see Gondor, and the sea," Boromir thought aloud as Aragorn and Gimli laid the body inside one of the Lorien boats. "Does not Anduin flow into the bay of Belfalas?"_

"_She will pass the towers of Dol Amroth built by her long-gone kin, and find the sea-road that way," Aragorn acknowledged._

_When they had finished, her clothes had been tenderly brushed clean of leaves, and her long bright hair, strangely luminous in death, was spread across the pillow of her torn, folded cloak. In her hands they had placed her bow, and at her feet were piled the weapons of the enemy, and the bolts that had killed her. "Let me add but one more thing," Boromir said quickly, and wrapped her dead hands around his horn, cloven in two by a passing blade. "It will sound no more for me," he said sadly. "Let her take that which brought her to my aid, one last gift from Gondor to the wood." He took the bow and glanced at the intricate carving and inlay along the weapon's satin polished sides, wondering if, like Narsil and other weapons of great note, it too contained an inscription about its name and purpose. Rinnelaisse had never said._

Forgive me, Lady,_ He said silently, gazing on the dead face of his companion. _When first we left Rivendell I counted you the weakest among us, even after the hobbits, because you were a woman on a man's errand. Yet in time you proved yourself the strongest of all, and the most noble.

And I am deeply, deeply in your debt.

* * *

"And so we let Anduin take charge of the body," Boromir summed up, his throat suddenly very dry and his eyes not dry at all. The tent was warm, and the sun outside illuminated them with a sort of golden light through the sides of the tent, the weaving and damasking coming out in high relief against the sunlight. Camp was fully awake now, and there were all the sounds of a military enclosure close to hand – smithies pounding, the whinny of horses and the constant murmur of voices and laughter.

"Faramir found her, in Ithilien," Rhoswen said, the first words she had uttered since he had begun the story. "The Rangers thought her a great warrior, and gave her such a burial as befits a great captain of their company. She lies in the woods again, under a mound of stone."

Boromir nodded. "It is a pretty country – she might have liked it there."

There was a great silence.

"He…he took the horn to mean that you were dead, my love," Rhoswen said quietly. "So did we all. But about that you have already heard," she added sadly. Boromir smiled at her, brushing a stray hair out of her face, and she caught his hand and pressed it to her cheek, letting it linger for longer than he had originally intended. Finally she let it go, and spoke again, and her eyes did not meet his. "I wished – I prayed – that some arrow would find my heart in battle too, so I would join you. But it did not come. I see now that the arrows did not find me – but they did you."

Boromir smiled sadly and pressed her close for a moment before remembering something. He got up from their bed for a moment to rummage through the belongings he had brought from Edoras before finding what he was looking for – a leather wallet stamped outside with a cunning elf-script, pierced through.

Rhoswen took the soft leather and turned it over in her hands, her fingers tracing the outline of a bloodstain on the cover where the leather had turned from soft brown to deep scarlet red. "It was a gift from the Lady Galadriel, mistress of the Golden Wood of Lothlórien, meant for you. It held herbs when it was given – I am ashamed to say they have long since been lost," Boromir explained. Rhoswen nodded mutely, looking at the gaping hole in the cover and tracing with one unsure finger the large, scarring circle near his breastbone. Boromir took her hand and pressed it to his skin, and Rhoswen looked at him, her eyes wide. "I wanted so much to bring it back to you," he said with a tentative smile. "The gardens at Lothlórien – Oh, Rhoswen! You would have danced with delight. I wore it under my tunic, on a cord, so that it would not come to harm. I meant to deliver it, but, as you see, it delivered me. The bolts were poisoned – the herbs kept its work at bay until we reached Edoras."

"Edoras!" Rhoswen cried aloud, sitting up straight again. "From Anduin to Edoras with four gaping holes in you! Surely it is not possible!"

"For three days, with three holes in my side and one very large bruise," Boromir said, truthfully, not wishing to frighten Rhoswen but not wishing to hide the truth from her either. "To say there was not pain would make me sound a fool. But I had survived one death – I would not let pain best me. I thought of home. I thought of you. Who would tell you where my bones lay if I died in Rohan far from the Silent Street of my fathers?"

"So you refused to die," Rhoswen repeated, a little incredulous, her hands still covering the scar on his chest. "But answer me another riddle, my love – these wounds have been sewn - expertly, I may add. Is our king so skilled a healer that he knows a surgeon's craft as well as his herblore?"

"No," Boromir said patiently. "For that, we needed to reach Edoras. But I was slow on my feet, and we had not yet found Merry and Pippin. We needed horses to cover more land than we could on foot, and we had none."

"But I suppose like the heroes of all good stories, you found some soon enough," Rhoswen asked. Boromir gave a small shrug.

* * *

"_There is a thunder like falling hooves,' Aragorn said, lifting his face from the ground where he had been listening. "The Horse-lords come. These men are far from Edoras, and this country is but scarcely peopled. For all my years among them, I could not tell you their purpose here. Yet we must press them for news – our trail here grows cold. " He glanced at Boromir, who instinctively threw his cloak's hood up over his head. He knew all too well what Aragorn meant; perhaps these were a band of traitors, riding away from the Golden Hall. Perhaps they would not take kindly to the son of their king's most powerful ally in their midst. Satisfied that they might have that protection at least from unfriendly eyes, Aragorn stepped away from the rocky bluff and called down to them._

"_Riders of Rohan! What news from the mark!"_

_With a speed and grace unmatched in Middle Earth the column of riders turned neatly and quickly on itself, doubling back to surround the group of travelers with a deep thicket of spears and drawn bowstrings, all eyes wary as they waited for the command of their lord, a rider taller than the rest. His arms and dress were distinguished from that of his company – his armor was a rich red in places, and heavily detailed, and on his helmet was a bright white plume of horsehair._

"_What business can three travelers have here in Rohan?" he asked harshly, his eyes glaring at them through the panels of his helmet. "Speak quickly!"_

"_In older days the horse-lords were famed for their open kindness and welcome," Gimli said, irritated that he should be threatened at spearpoint. "It is a shame now we are only given the hospitality of the sword."_

"_Speak ill again of my people, dwarf, and you will see what a fine dance this sword will lead you through," the leader replied. Aragorn, anxious to see no more of his company dead in pieces, stepped between the two, his hands open in a gesture of peace._

"_You ask us our business – very well. We track a party of Uruk-Hai westward across the plain. We mean only to kill them; we wish no harm to Rohan or her people. They have taken two of our friends captive."_

_The leader, however, remained unconvinced. "Strange friends you have, if the Uruk Hai have captured them. Well we know in Rohan the ways of the Dark One's servants. What interest can they have with your friends?"_

_The circle tightened once more, and Boromir, himself growing impatient, reached beneath his cloak and brandished one of the arrows he had strapped to his back, the arrows he meant to make a monument of in his house. "This is our business!" He said, brandishing the bolt above his head, black-fletched and bloody-tipped. "The business of the Red Arrow! Are there still men of honor in Rohan who remember it?" He glared from the depths of his hood up at the leader of the company, who glanced at his men and gave a small handsign, letting the circle widen a little._

"_And who are you, that you call us to remember the oaths of the old times?" The leader asked, peering at the stranger in the cloak who would not show his face._

_Boromir looked at the leader once more and, realizing who it was behind the helmet, laughed. The company surrounding them shifted uncomfortably, and even the leader appeared uneasy. "One who has broken bread with you, Éomer __É__omundson, and who knows well the strength of your arm and the skill of your sword. No wizard am I, nor a wizard's thrall," he added, watching Éomer's face fill with fear as he used the younger man's name. "But no ordinary man, either." He drew his hood back and stared at Éomer. "Do you know me now?" He asked with a smile, his eyes searching the younger man's face. "In the late summer we shared mead together at the tables of your uncle's house, and we talked with your cousin of the beauty of women."_

_It was strange, but as he drew his hood back, Boromir felt almost as though he were raising another, unseen veil from his face. It took a few moments for Éomer to recognize him, but it was slow process, as if the Third Marshal were drawing the memory of someone he could not see clearly. _Perhaps there is more enchantment in these cloaks than we know,_ Boromir thought to himself._

"_Boromir!" Éomer's hand did not have to give the signal before the spears were raised. "You choose strange traveling companions, Son of Denethor."_

"_Strange they may be," Boromir said with a little smile, glancing at Gimli and Aragorn, "But spirited. Allow me to introduce to you Gimli, son of Gloin, of the Kingdom of Erebor, and Aragorn, son of Arathorn –" and he wanted very much to add, 'of the House of Isildur, the Returned King' but he felt Aragorn's gaze on him, and remained silent. Perhaps it was not time for that just yet. "And they are truthful – we do track a band of Uruks who have taken our friends captive. Ask us not why – that much we must keep from you."_

"_The Uruks are destroyed," Éomer said shortly. "We slaughtered them during the night and burned them, as is our custom. They lie yonder, by the border of Fangorn Forest," he said, pointing towards the west and the trees that grew in the distance there._

"_But there were two hobbits!" Gimli cried. "Did you see two hobbits with them?"_

"_They would be small," Aragorn explained, seeing Éomer's confusion. "More like children to your eyes."_

_Éomer shook his head. "We dragged many corpses, but none who looked as you describe."_

_It was bad news, of a certainty – but something about this meeting still troubled Boromir. "And what errand sends the Third Marshal and his man all the way to the feet of the mountains? Are you also hunting Orcs?"_

"_I am hunting whatever plagues the Mark," Éomer said grimly. "And I am far from my usual hunting grounds because I cannot seize my enemies at home," he added darkly. "If your road takes you to Edoras, go and find welcome if you must, but much has changed since you last enjoyed my uncle's company. Old friends and well known faces carry no guarantee as they once did – Théoden no longer recognizes friend from foe. They say the White Wizard has poisoned his mind, and well that may be – I am banished from court. Perhaps you will fare there better than I!"_

"_Banished?" Boromir asked, surprise evident in his voice. "The Théoden I knew would not so easily cast away a sword such as yours, nor turn away one of his kin."_

_Éomer nodded, and there was a great sadness in his nod of agreement. "And well I know it, Boromir Denethor's son. Let me detain you no longer with my grief – while I have a horse and a spear I will harry the enemy, and I mean to do so. Let your path take you where it will. For my part, I will heed the Red Arrow, if none other will hear you – you have only to send for us."_

"_You have given me a gift this day I cannot repay fully," Boromir said gladly, and Éomer looked at the older man with interest. "You have given me hope," the Gondorian explained. _

"_Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope," Éomer said, unsympathetic. "It has all of forsaken these lands. Let me give you a gift better. Hasufel! Arod!" At his call and whistle, two horses trotted out of the war-band, their saddles empty. "May these horses bear you to better fortune than their former masters. Farewell, son of Denethor! May we meet again in better times than these."_

_It took only a moment for the company to gallop off again, leaving Gimli and Aragorn holding the reins for the two horses Éomer had left with them._

"_The arm of the enemy is strong indeed, if they feel him already in Rohan," Gimli said sadly. _

"_They are a mighty people, but given to dark imaginings," Boromir added. "I lived among them for a time, and their stories come from the long winters of the North, when there is no light for weeks on end. Perhaps it is not as grim as he would have us believe."_

"_Perhaps it is, or perhaps it is not," Aragorn said. "But that does not help us find the hobbits. If it is to Fangorn the Uruks have gone, then it is to Fangorn we must go. Can you ride?" He asked, looking with searching eyes at Boromir. _

_Boromir closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the smell of sun-warmed grass and testing his wounds. "I think I could stand it, if it meant I no longer had to run," he confirmed. "The Lady's herbs are potent medicine."_

_Aragorn nodded. "Come, Gimli," he said, gesturing to the dwarf, "Ride pillion with me, and we will leave Boromir his own horse."_

* * *

"What did you find at Fangorn?" Rhoswen asked. The sun was higher in the sky, and she had taken a moment of Boromir's storytelling to get dressed. Wearing a plain and somber blue work-dress, she sat by the fire taking the whole story in, the breakfast tray beside their bed gone cold.

Boromir's eyes were distant, remembering. "The White Wizard."

"Saruman?" Rhoswen's voice pronounced the name as if she did not know it well, a fact for which Boromir was glad, but he was gladder still that he could shake his head and say "No, not Saruman. Mithrandir."

_The Gray Pilgrim. That was what they used to call me_. Gandalf had said that in the forest, as if he did not fully remember. It had been as though he was, and yet was not, the wizard who had left Rivendell with them all those months ago. _But who among us, among all of us, could truly say this journey has not changed us as well? We are all different men than those who set out from Rivendell. And some more than others._

There were raised voices outside the tent, and Rhoswen and Boromir both reclined a little towards the tent's opening to listen for Narthion's announcement of who their visitor happened to be.

"The Lord Amrothos, and the Lord Éomer to see you, my lord," the squire said, his voice a little tentative, probably wondering if he was interrupting some other pastime of his lord and lady. Boromir stood up, suddenly a little self-conscious about his surcoat and the state of his tent. But he need not have worried, for Rhoswen was up quicker than a shot to rearrange a few small domestic touches, bringing over an ewer of ale for the table and another chair as Boromir's cousin and the King of Rohan stepped inside. Both men looked a little surprised to see a woman, but Éomer made his bow as neatly as any practiced courtier, and Amrothos did himself credit by not seeming too surprised, though he did send his cousin a look of amused wonder before kissing Rhoswen's hand.

"My lady cousin, you're looking well. Have you been in camp long? Boromir said nothing of your being here the other day, or we might have paid a visit sooner!"

"I arrived yesterday, 'Rothos – but I was fatigued from my journey, and my lord _husband_-" how charmingly she emphasized the word, and how Amrothos' smile quickened to hear it! "-did not want to trouble me," Rhoswen said, equally as agreeable as Amrothos was mirthful.

"If you are still tired, Lady, we will leave," Éomer offered, scarcely having sat down in his chair and bounded up again at the suggestion that they might be intruding. Rhoswen, however, laid a hand on his arm and silently bade him sit back down.

"No, I am quite recovered. Boromir was telling to me the story of his travels. He was just telling me of your first part in it, actually."

The King of the Mark snorted ungraciously and looked bemusedly at Boromir. "Doubtless between your husband and my sister, Lady, you have heard all manner of troublesome tales."

"You think very poorly of yourself, my Lord, if you think they would speak ill of you. From Éowyn I have heard nothing but praise –and Boromir's tale speaks well of you also."

"Oh? And where are you in Boromir's tale."

"We had just come to the border of Rohan, and met the faithful watchmen on the hillside," Boromir supplied.

"Faithful watchmen! Ha! A coward, banished from his uncle's house on the whim of a worm," the King of the Mark said bitterly.

"A steadfast warrior, biding his time to strike, as all wise men do," Rhoswen rephrased, a pretty compliment that made Éomer duck his head a little in embarrassment. "Come, tell me a little of Edoras, and your halls there, my lord! I am sure you could describe them much better than Boromir can. And we are nearly there in the story, I think," she said, looking to Boromir for assurance. He nodded, content to leap over a few minor details here or there for the sake of time and the storyteller.

"I am no poet," Éomer admitted. "Let the Lord Amrothos tell it, for he's been there, at least once, and he'll do right by it."

"Meduseld!" Amrothos said, smiling and sitting back in his chair, remembering. "Splendor of the Horse Lords! Its pillars are the strongest trees, bound in gold and finished with carvings so intricate you can see the hairs of the horses' tails in the work. It is built for full five hundred men at arms, and no conqueror has breached its gates. They are plated with the finest ironwork, and there is tenderness in the tracery. It stands over Edoras, the City of the Kings, and the wind is wild on its banners. There are high stone steps from the town unto the King's Doors, and ten doorwards keep the watch there. Their coats are green, and their mail is bright. When they draw back the doors, the hall is flickering with firelight, and the hearth is hot with flame."

"Well, it may have seemed such when you went, when the hall was merry," Boromir cut in, before his cousin's pretty dream threatened to overwhelm the story. "But we did not see such a place that day."

* * *

_The city that the four companions rode into was not the Edoras that Boromir remembered. Had it really only been six months since he had ridden through on his way to the Council of Elrond? Granted, he was the Steward's son, and worthy of a king's welcome for it, but even without the fanfare of an official greeting, the city seemed much changed. The streets were quieter, the people going about their daily business without smiles or carefree greetings. There was a pall of fear over everything and everyone. Here and there, Boromir could see, small, tight knit packs of dark-clad men lolled in corners and leered from seats looking out onto the street. The housewives out with their daughters seemed to duck their heads as they went past these men, afraid of being noticed._

And whose side do you fight on,_ Boromir almost asked one of the men who looked up into his face sneering as they rode past. He was whittling something and flashing his knife at those who walked by with an evident air of power. Here was what Éomer had described – a city without hope, invaded by enemies the Third Marshal was powerless to throw out. _But who brought them here?_ Boromir wondered._

_Up they climbed, past the city and into the palace compound at the very peak of the hill, sunlight glinting from the gilded timbered roofs of Meduseld. Climbing to the doors, however, the four travelers found the doors shut against all comers. They had little enough time to wait in seeing why, for no sooner had they all reached the top of the stairs but the doors opened, admitting a burly Rider clad in the scaled mail and embroidered cloak of the Household Guard._

"_Ah," Gandalf said, evidently recognizing the fellow. "Hama."_

"_I cannot allow you before Théoden-king so armed, Gandalf Greyhame," the Doorward Hama said brusquely, leaving no time for the wizard to even introduce the nature of his mission. "Your swords and axes you must leave here with me."_

_Gandalf looked mildly surprised by this, but Boromir was stunned, and more than a little angry._

"_You would disarm me, Hama, who has broken bread with your lord? You know I am no threat here. Never before have you asked me to remove my sword before coming into this hall."_

_Hama seemed taken aback – he had obviously not recognized the Gondorian among the company, probably a little awed by the presence not only of the fabled wizard, but also a dwarf, whose like were seldom seen in Rohan. "Your face we know, Boromir Denethor's son, but your companions are not known here. I am bidden to take all your weapons, friend or no. By order of Grima Wormtongue," He added cautiously, as though he did not over-love the name._

_Aragorn, Boromir and Gandalf exchanged a glance, but all removed their swords to place in Hama's hands. At his side, Gimli looked longingly at his axe, but also handed it over without question. Yet still the doors remained shut._

"_And your staff," Hama said to Gandalf, as if explaining why he still barred them entry._

"_Oh?" Gandalf seemed to age fifty years in a single syllable. "You would not part an old man with his walking stick, would you?" He leaned upon Boromir's arm, and Boromir glanced at him, nodding and trying not to smile too widely. Hama frowned, but let them enter._

_It had been a brighter place when Boromir had last been here. As it had been in the town below, a gloom had descended upon the Golden Hall. And still there were ruffians who did not seem to belong, in amongst the green-clad warriors of the Mark. The king's chair was as it had always been, strong against a backdrop of the warbanners of the kings of old, but the king in it –_

_Gods above, could this really be the same man?_

"_Théoden, son of Thengel," Gandalf said, arms open in a gesture of peace. "I bring come with tidings in this dark hour."_

_It was a hearty greeting, but it fell on deafened ears. The king barely stirred, hunched in his chair like a man three times his age, eyes rheumy and hair unkempt, staring out unseeing over the hall of audience where he had once so regally presided. Boromir remembered meeting him once, when he had been but a young man, a knight of Gondor and the newly confirmed Captain-Heir, and the strength of the king of Rohan had impressed him. _

_Golden-haired and blue eyed, Théoden seemed unfailingly confident, a vision of leadership that Boromir had, for the briefest of moments in a young man's jealous mind, wished were his own father. Beside the gray-haired, stern face of Denethor, Théoden Thengel's son was everything a young man wishes his father to be – bright eyed, full of life, excelling at games of war against men half his age, and above all, interested in the well-being of his people, and his son._

_His son! _Where is Théodred?_ Boromir did not see him here. _Are times so dire that the king has exiled his son as well as his nephew? What strange council sits with him now?

_For there was strange council sitting at Théoden's seat – a small, pale man with dark hair, more like a Gondorian in color than the fair, flaxen haired people of the Riddermark. His dress was costly, and his seat, while lower than that of the king, was set very close to the throne. He leaned in close to address the aging monarch, and when, at last, Théoden spoke, it was with the croak of a strong man turned sickly._

"_Why should I welcome you, Gandalf Stormcrow?"_

"_A just question, my liege," the councilor said, and as he spoke, Boromir understood that this was Grima Wormtongue, the man of whom Hama had made reference. "Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear. Stormcrow does not fit him now – L__á__thspell I name him. Ill news is an ill guest."_

_It was too much for Gandalf, who scowled scornfully at Grima as the shorter man leered in front of him. "Be silent," he snapped, losing the veneer of old age he had put on for Hama. "Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth. I did not pass through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm." His staff appeared from the folds of his robe, warding off a now terrified looking Grima, who glanced to Hama at the back of the hall, his eyes pleading with the doorwarden._

"_His staff! I told you to take the wizard's staff!" he cried desperately, his eyes flickering to either side of the hall as Gandalf advanced to the throne, arms outstretched in welcome._

_It was the sign they had not looked for – the shadowy men of the side-halls burst forth to overwhelm the travelers, but it was in vain. The common mercenary used to fighting in side alleys and small inns had no chance against three seasoned veterans of the road, well-used now to fighting orcs and goblins and far worse denizens of the world. Gandalf was speaking to Théoden now, but Boromir could not hear what he was saying – he was too busy wrestling with a particularly heavy ruffian, matched with him in height, if not in skill. The fellow hit him hard in his ribs, knocking at one of his wounds, and Boromir grimaced visibly. The man smiled, seeing his opportunity, but he did not have a chance to act on it before Gimli buffeted the man out of the way and cuffed him around the head with one blunt fist, knocking him unconscious._

_Boromir smiled at the Dwarf and turned back to Gandalf and the King, still locked in what now appeared to be an epic battle of wills. And suddenly, Gandalf threw off his cloak._

_The light was blinding in the darkness of the hall, and everyone stepped back a pace, amazed._

"_I will draw you, Saruman, as poison is drawn from a wound," Gandalf threatened, and he advanced upon the throne, holding his staff before him like a warrior holds a sword or shield. When they had met him in the woods they had seen a taste of his power, the great and terrible magic that Gandalf the Grey did not often use. Gandalf the White, it seemed, did not hesitate to wield his power openly._

_But not always to the good – Boromir felt a rustle behind him as a woman pushed past, anxious to attend the king, and without thinking, held her back. She looked up at him, afraid and unseeing, and Boromir, taking a moment, realized it was Éowyn – the king's niece, and Éomer's sister. "Give him a moment," He whispered to her, and her eyes glanced back to Théoden, pressed against his chair and struggling against the force that held him there._

"_If I go, Théoden dies!" Théoden spoke, and the voice that issued from his throat was not his own, but another wiser and more powerful, hissing at Gandalf through this battle of spells. Éowyn surged against Boromir's arm, but he held firm._

"_You did not kill me," Gandalf countered, his voice low and measured. "And you shall not kill him while I still draw breath."_

"_Rohan is mine," Théoden spat again, and suddenly surged forth from the chair as if to attack Gandalf himself, but the White Wizard's spell was too much for him, throwing him back against the chair and leaving him weak, slumped forward as if unconscious. It was only now that Boromir released Éowyn to care for her uncle, and she rushed forward to catch the king before he fell from his chair. Théoden looked up at her, surprised for a moment, and the company watched in wonder as the king lost years before their eyes, his hair regaining its color and luster and his eyes losing their rheumy pall. He looked around the room, astonished, and blinked a few times, trying to recover himself. Then he looked at Éowyn, and smiled, whispering something to her._

_But Boromir was finding it hard to stand, and he did not have time to see the reunion between uncle and niece before his head hit the floor in a dead faint._

* * *

Wounded, he'd have  
been lost in the forest  
had he not followed the arrow.

More than half of it  
protruded from his chest  
and showed him the way.

The arrow had  
struck him in the back  
and pierced his body.  
Its bloody tip was a signpost.

What a blessing  
to have it point  
a path  
between the trees!

Now he knew  
he'd never again  
go wrong  
and he wasn't far  
from the mark.

- _The Arrow, Marin Sorescu, translated from the Romanian by John Hartley Williams and Hilde Ottschofski_

* * *

This is not the hall of Meduseld,_ Boromir thought to himself, looking up to see not bright pennants and the carved heads of horses in the rafters, but the carved wooden roof of an interior room. The light had changed, and the other figures in the room were scarcely visible, sleeping on the floor._

"_How long have I been asleep?" He asked to himself, looking around the room for some clue._

"_A few hours," one of the figures answered back, causing Boromir to jump a little. Even in the pre-dawn gloom of the bedchamber he recognized Gandalf in his bright white robes, a kind of strange lamp in this dark place. "The benefit of heavy sleep and a clean bandage were all that was necessary. Though how you got so far with near four holes in you the surgeons of Edoras long to know," he added with a small grin. "I assumed, of course, that this had something to do with it." He held up the embossed wallet and handed it to Boromir, who took it, a little stunned. The leather-work across the front was stained deep red, and none too prettily, either – a large hole obscured the sigils in the work, passing almost all the way through the folds. The last layer, however, had only a heavy gouge in it – the arrow had not penetrated._

"_It was a gift from the Lady," Boromir said, knowing that Gandalf would not need to ask which one. "It was filled with herbs and seeds to bring home for Rho—for my betrothed."_

"_It saved your life," Gandalf said simply. "That last bolt would have killed you, if it had gone any closer to your heart. The Lady's herbs are powerful – far more than any grown here in Rohan, though those will help you mend well enough. And there is magic enough in this, too," He added, holding up a strip of what had bound the leather to Boromir's body – a strip torn from an elven cloak. The only cloth Rinnelaisse had on hand when she had tended to him. "But arrows and bruises were but a little taste of all your hurts," Gandalf said suddenly. "How long have your thoughts not been your own?"_

_Boromir looked up from the bloodied strip of cloak to meet Gandalf's gaze. "How did you …'_

"_The Lady's magic would have healed you faster were a flesh wound your only weakness. What I drew from your body after the healers were done was far worse than an arrow – the remnants of a spell of Saruman's. Not dissimiliar to the one he used to charm Théoden to his will. I expect that is why you collapsed. In leaving the king, he tried to take your mind again. So – how long?" His bright blue gaze set Boromir on edge._

"_Nearly a year," he realized, remembering with a pang in his chest the Maying, when he had nearly driven Rhoswen to her death out in the driving rain of a Gondorian spring. "It came and went – I thought it but a side effect of ill humor and little sleep. I…controlled it, a little, by remembering home, and Rhoswen. When it first started – I nearly hurt her."_

"_Indeed," Gandalf said, looking pensive. "The young woman's council must be better than you report, if a small memory of her was able to keep such a spell at bay. The ring certainly would have made it worse. And yet…" He drifted off, deep in thought. Boromir leaned back against the pillows and closed his eyes a moment, breathing deeper than he had been able to in weeks. His body felt clean, wrapped in bandages not already soaked and heavy in blood. And there was a lightness in his mind, too, such as there had not been for a long, long while. He was remembering another dark night in another bedroom, far away in Osgiliath, looking down on the sleeping form of Rhoswen before he himself went to sleep. Of late that face would have been unknown to him – no nightmare or shadow this figure. Only a beautiful young woman wrapped in sleep, untroubled by the worries of world. That face had let him sleep sounder in Osgiliath than he had in many months of patrols, and it was beautiful to dwell on now._

"_She loves you, this Rhoswen?" Gandalf said after a great silence. _

"_And I her," Boromir confirmed, rubbing her necklace in between his fingers, aware it must have been quite a sight after such disuse for months on end._

"_Love is itself a powerful magic," Gandalf decided. "And the longing for love stronger still. For a king seeing his son grow up and his own place in history fading from view, perhaps the idea of being loved grows dim. For a man still in his prime, thinking of his young beloved at home, no such feeling of fading exists. Perhaps Théoden made a better target for the scrying spells of a wizard bent towards power. If he could not have you – and it seems likely that his true intention in taking your mind was to bend you towards taking the ring – then he began to try for Théoden, who could appear friendly and offer help in a way that the Wizard of Isengard, with his tower surrounded by Orcs and his bright walls thrown down, cannot." He rose from his chair and laid a hand on Boromir's shoulder. "Whatever the reason, it is gone now, and that is an end to it – he will trouble you no more."_

"_Except with guilt," Boromir said heavily. At this, Gandalf smiled, turning back from the doorway._

"_But guilt is a gift—it means you are still a man of conscience. It means he has not wholly taken your soul."_

_It was enough philosophy for one morning – Gandalf left to attend his own devices, leaving Boromir to lay back down and drift back to sleep, waking when the sun had fully risen and his room was, mercifully, empty._

_But the first of Boromir's visitors was not Aragorn, or even one of the healers, but the King. He looked as the Gondorian remembered him – tall and fair, his robes richly ornamented. The elderly dotard that had greeted them yesterday was gone, but in his place was a man in middle age who still retained the shadow of fear behind his eyes._

"_They tell me you are recovering well, for a man who has journeyed so far in your condition," Théoden said, drawing a stool closer to the bedside. "I was grieved when I heard that you had come to me and now lay ill in my house. Six months, is it not, since you last took bread with us?"_

My lord, I should be coming to you to wish you well,_ the Gondorian thought to himself. But that was the nature of hospitality. Sometimes it came from unexpected quarters. "Indeed, it is probably closer seven," Boromir said. "I am only sorry I could not return the horse you lent me – at this moment he is in the stables of the Elves of Rivendell, and growing fat and happy there, I am sure."_

"_The elves of Rivendell," Théoden repeated in wonderment. "So it does exist. And you have been there! Yours is a strange tale, Lord Boromir, and one I would wish to hear, if we had more time. We go to bury my son today."_

_It was a simple statement, said without flourish or fillip, and Boromir's heart sank like a stone. _So he is dead, then, and recently, too.

"_I am sorry for your loss, my lord. Well I remember the Lord Th__é__odred – ever he was a friend to me."_

_At this Théoden laughed. "I am not so much in my dotage I do not remember the words between you and my son when you were last here, Lord Boromir! You debated the beauty of women – an argument you won, I believe, and very soundly."_

"_I might have lost the same, once," the Gondorian said fairly. "Théodred was a young man, and as all young men are. Once I was very much like him, and given to boasting at all comers."_

_Théoden nodded, his smile sad. "Alas that we cannot now say, 'And one day he will be like you.'" He gave a short, shuddering laugh, pathetic and heart-rending. "They told me that the news that my son was dead was given me some several days ago. But try as I may, I can call forth no such memory!" His eyes were seized with tears, coursing down his cheeks without check. "What have I done to come to such evil days as these?"_

_Boromir reached over to clasp the King's hand, and Théoden seized it, crying fully now for grief for his son. "It is not the actions of a single man that bring us to these times and hardships as we now face," Boromir said by way of comfort. "But it may be the actions of a single man that end them." There were tears on his own face now as he thought of that fleeting moment of Frodo's face, frozen in fear as the ring slipped over his finger, running away from one of the company sworn to protect him. _Where is Frodo now, I wonder? Is he still safe? Will all of this journeying come to naught?

"_Théodred knew his duty," he continued, remembering the matter at hand, "and he died in the service of his king, and his father, as he had sworn to do. There is no more honorable death than that. Would I could have such a death, when my time comes."_

_The memory of arrows came unbidden to him, flying furiously amidst a battle fray. Merry and Pippin seemed so small behind him, and the orcs ahead of them too large to stand against and live. It was to have been his redemption. The fulfillment of the oath he had already broken. His death would have sealed the breach of the fellowship. And yet it was Rinnelaisse who lay dead in the forests of Amon Hen, and Boromir who took the hospitality of the Golden Hall._

"_Speak not of the death of young men!" Théoden urged him strongly, drawing him out of reverie. "I would not wish this grief of mine on any father."_

And yet it seems we must_, Boromir thought to himself, remembering the ruins of Osgiliath and the broken bodies that lay there. _Each one of them was someone's son, and not a few were already fathers. In times of war, grief must be shared by all.

_But these thoughts he kept to himself. "Have you warriors to carry the bier?" The Captain-Heir asked, changing the subject and hoping to draw Théoden a little out of his grief._

"_It must be his own people, his own men who share that task," Théoden said, still crying slightly. "But it helps my heart to know that you would ask. He would be honored, I think, to have you march in procession with us, and share in the funeral feast afterwards. It would have made him proud to know he had such friends."_

"_Then I shall do that. I am not so sorely wounded that I cannot pay my respects on behalf of my father, and my people. We know well in Gondor that we do not see some terrors there because of the Men of the North."_

_The whole city turned out to bury their prince, a man who had been young and bright and beautiful, and the hope of the whole country. Well he had been loved, and it showed in the heartfelt tears of people as his bier passed by, carried by six men of the King's Household and followed, solemnly and sternly, by his father, wearing his coronet and his robes of state, far sadder garments now then they should have been, given that they, too, had borne the brunt of Saruman's spell. Théoden had looked uncomfortable in them, when first they left the hall, but as he walked down the steep street to the Barrows of the Kings, his shoulders seemed to slip back into regal stature, the sight of his son's dead body strengthening his already stern demeanor. Gandalf followed behind him, and then Boromir and Aragorn, as clean and presentable as they could make themselves, and all the nobles of the city behind them in somber procession._

_At the doors of the tomb the guardsmen stopped, and gave possession of the bier over to six maidens of the city. If he had been a child, the matrons of the city would have borne his body into his tomb—if an aged king, his sons and soldiers would have carried him the whole way. But he had been unmarried, had fathered no children, and therefore would be buried in the manner of young men cut down in their prime, mourning not only the loss of his life, but the loss of his children's lives and his love as well._

_His cousin Éowyn stood beside the barrow, and as they passed the body inside, she and the women of the king's household began to sing, the last lament for Théodred, the king's son. She sang in Rohirric, in the tongue of their fathers of old, and Boromir's heart felt moved with great pity to hear her. Here was a woman who had know a hard life these past months, to see the death of her cousin and the slow decay of her uncle, a man who had been like a father to her, and without, in these last few days, the comfort of her brother to calm her. _

_He remembered the Éowyn he had met all those many months before, the proud daughter of kings who presided over her uncle's table with a kind of open, decisive unwillingness. She seemed older now, and a little of that unwillingness had left. Yet there was still a shadow of that flame flickering somewhere about her._

_When her song was finished, and the final stone of the tomb hefted into place, the crowd began to disperse, heading back up the hill to the funeral feasts. Théoden, however, did not show signs of moving, even as the honor guard backed respectfully away from the tomb. Éowyn, too, lingered, the black veil covering her hair flickering with the wind._

"_May we not take you back to the hall, lady?" Boromir offered, quietly, as Éowyn, too, turned away from the tomb to return to Meduseld._

"_Yes, you may do that. My uncle will be here for a while yet, and there is still the feast to consider." She said this as if it were the most onerous thing in the world, and took Boromir's proffered arm only as a matter of courtesy, fully able to climb the hill herself even with the encumbrance of her heavy dark skirts._

"_What was the nature of your song, Lady?" Boromir asked, merely for something to say._

"'_An evil death has set forth the noble warrior, A song shall sing sorrowing minstrels, in Meduseld that he is no more, to his lord dearest and kinsmen most beloved.' There is more, but that is the general way of it."_

"_It was masterfully sung."_

"_Thank you, my lord Boromir." She said this stiffly, and did not speak again until they raised the steps of Meduseld, and then, nodding to her companions, left them swiftly on the steps, probably to go and see to the feast._

* * *

"I did not realize how long I had been away from the company of women, until I heard her sing. A woman's voice rings differently on a man's ears when he is long away from home." Boromir caught for Rhoswen's hand and held it gently, smiling gratefully at her.

"Have a care, my lord. Do not speak too well of the sister while her brother is here to admonish you. You of all people should know that, if Erun has taught you anything at all."

"From other men I would take offense, Lady, but from your husband I will take all my sister's praises, for I know he means what he says, and has no further purpose with them, being so happily married to a lady of great grace already." Éomer said, surprising Rhoswen, at least, with what seemed from him to be quite a speech. "We should be going," the King of the Riddermark said to Amrothos. "We have drunk too much of the lord's hospitality already, and there is still council to take with your father."

"It was kind of you to stop," Rhoswen said, ushering them to the tent and sending them on their way before ducking back inside and instead running into Boromir, who had followed her outside, blinking a little in the sudden sunlight. "Well, surely there is more," she said, looking to Boromir as if she meant him to continue the story uninterrupted.

"More? To the story? Oh, of a certainty, yes, but I think I shall let someone else tell it," The Steward said, stretching his arms and turning his face into the sun with a smile. "All the rest is battles and smoke, and any man may tell that as well as I, and some better. And you've heard most of it already. You asked me to tell you where I had been. That is where I have been, more or less."

"And that where you are going," Rhoswen said, taking his arm and turning him to face Minas Tirith, off in the distance like a white-prowed ship. Even from here they could hear, distantly, the sounds of stonemasons and carpenters, and see the banners being raised.

"Where _we_ are going," Boromir said, correcting her.

And Rhoswen smiled.

Rhoswen had entered camp and gone straight to Boromir's tent without much fanfare of one kind or another, and, since the afternoon was fine, her husband took the opportunity now to show her the rest of the Osgiliath encampment. It felt a little strange, letting her into his man's world of camp fires and sharpened steel again, but she seemed a different person now than the woman who had shied to walk through the wards of soldiers at the houses of healing. She smiled at their jokes, accepted their rough-hewn praise with dignity and decorum, and she did not cling so tightly to his arm as she had done before he went away, though her hands did not leave it for very long, as though she and he were some kind of single being, he the oak and she the trailing ivy, the picture incomplete without one or the other.

He showed her everything – the horse pens, the cooking tents, the stores, the practice yards, the smithies and wheelwrights and farriers and harness-masters.

It was getting late indeed when he was convinced he had shown her all the camp there was fit for a lady's eyes to see (and a fair bit that had not, perhaps, been fit for a lady). But Rhoswen showed no signs of tiring – and she was curious after her own ways. When Boromir finally admitted a little fatigue, his wife looked at him with a calm glint in her eye.

"But you have not shown me the healers' tents, Boromir."

A simple request, and one he must have known that she would make. Rhoswen studied her husband, trying to explain his reticence as he dropped his gaze, shuffled his feet, and said nothing. And their whole long morning's conversations came back to her, and she remembered, after a little searching, who they would find there. How hard it had been to take that story from him, how long it had taken! And how he had trembled in her arms to tell it, filled with the shame of his broken vow and the great sorrow of it and the doubly found shame of weeping and being seen so weak in front of his beloved. Not that any of that mattered to Rhoswen, she had merely wanted to ease his burdens, did not think him weak at all crying. But it had all mattered to him.

And it seemed there was something of a burden still lingering in his mind.

"Come, my love," she said, taking his hand with a strong grip. "Let us go together."

The healers' tents were set on the very edge of the camp, behind a tidy buffer of supply tents and officer's quarters, to set them apart from the general noise and tumult of the rest of the army. Here it was a little quieter, and the air a little fresher, better by far for knitting bones and patching bolt-holes.

These were the men too sick to move to the city – the men who had long, long recoveries ahead of them. The best healers had been sent out to Osgiliath to tend them, even if some men would never really recover. Here, then, was a place of rest before the final curtain of the world; the white walls of the tents, illuminated with the sun, gave the interior a calm, warm feeling. Somewhere in a corner, a brazier filled with herbs burned, giving off a sweet-smelling scent.

Normally Rhoswen would have stopped, talked with the healers and with the men. But she was here on a single purpose, and for a single person still healing in this place.

"Lady Rhoswen!" a small voice said, and the White Rose smiled to see Peregrin Took, still in his Citadel Uniform, come to greet them. "I wish someone had told me you were in camp today," the hobbit said. "Perhaps Boromir might have shared you a little."

"And perhaps he shall, in a little while. But we are here on a special errand, Peregrin. We are here to see Frodo."

If Pippin saw how much the name pained Boromir's ears, or how the Steward's hand tightened in his lady's grasp, he did not say. He smiled, and nodded, with his easy, childlike air of affection, and led them back the way he had come through the tent, to a small cubicle at the back, as far removed as possible from the rest, explaining the Ringbearer's condition as he went.

Boromir, for his part, was not listening. The world had gone curiously silent, and there was a great ringing in his ears. His feet made him stop at the doorway to the little room, and he could see Rhoswen, standing inside the doorway, smiling and talking to someone, asking after his condition, setting out her request. She beckoned to him, and he could not move, until she stepped back out into the passageway, and took his hand in both of hers, and kissed it, and looked him square in the eye as if to beg him, _Please, my love, for me._

Rhoswen had not, before, now, had a chance to meet the Ringbearer. The long work of taking the cursed thing from Rivendell to Mount Doom had taken its toll on young Frodo Baggins, and it showed dreadfully. The skin around his eyes was dark, his hands pale against the white cuffs of his bedshirt, and he looked as though he had lost a good deal of weight. She had known, a little, of how arduous that journey must have been, but having heard all of Boromir's remembrances that morning, having heard what kind of tricks the ring played on the minds of those around it, she wanted so badly to take the little hobbit in her arms and embrace him as she might embrace her brother, or her child. How small he seemed, how vulnerable – and yet, _how brave!_

It took all the effort in the world to move Boromir into that room. Another hobbit, whom Peregrin had introduced as Sam, stood as Boromir stepped inside, the hobbit's expression a little grim and very protective. But he drew back a little as he saw the Gondorian's face, and it was all Boromir could do to remain where he was as Sam left to stand out in the passageway with Peregrin.

Frodo's eyes had sparked with sudden fear when Boromir had come inside, but they had quieted now, seeing Boromir's face and the anguish there. It took another great effort of Rhoswen's to move him further into the space, and one of Frodo's wan smiles and thin, diminished hands raised in greeting to bring him to the hobbit.

Rhoswen lingered only for a moment, when she was sure that neither one nor the other would come to harm, leaving the Steward her husband kneeling by the hobbit's bedside, weeping openly in contrition.

* * *

I was trying to post this chapter and reading through it thinking it was missing something. And then, a phrase occurred to me. _Te Absolvo. _I absolve you. It's a phrase from the Latin text of the Roman Catholic form for confession. Boromir needed what amounted to a confession, which he got, a little, with Rhoswen, but Rhoswen couldn't absolve – that is, take away and absolutely forgive – the sins he spoke to her about. I am very guilty of cutting Frodo out of this story a lot, and the story couldn't continue forward without bringing him back in.

I realize skipping through most of the battles in the Two Towers may not be a popular decision, but we really needed to hurry the story along, and one of the criticisms I received most often on the original version of this story was that I didn't change enough in the retold, 'main' storyline. So we're skipping it!

A word on Boromir's wounds. Some of you may be wondering why there are four arrows and Rhoswen describing three holes. One arrow, the final, killing arrow, was blocked by the leather wallet of herbs given to Boromir by Galadriel. Suffice it to say there was magic involved in getting him to Rohan in more or less working order. Consider this your willing suspension of disbelief moment for the day.

Also, I just found that poem "The Arrow" today in a book of poetry and I love it.

A huge thanks to brandibuckeye, 1607hannah, A Light in the Night, Nanuk, Beloved Daughter, EarthMama, lilgooner and The Dork of York for your lovely reviews and support/indignation for Iorlas and Narthion and, of course, for Boromir and Rhoswen. I love to hear from each and every one of you.


	35. Chapter 35

_Although the wind_

_blows terribly here,_

_the moonlight also leaks_

_between the roof planks_

_of this ruined house._

_- Izumi Shikibu, translated By Jane Hirshfield and Mariko Aratani_

* * *

"_I come weary,_

_In search of an inn—_

_Ah! these wisteria flowers!"_

_-Matsuo Basho, translated by William George Aston_

* * *

They met at the door of the tent in silence, Boromir's face reddened and still a little damp. Rhoswen took his hand and clasped it gently, as if to remind him that there were still other people on the earth who might help him, and blotted at his face with the cuff of her sleeve. He smiled at the little gesture, and another tear escaped, only to be caught by her sleeve again.

"We may wait a little, if you would like," Rhoswen suggested, but her husband shook his head, saying nothing. He remained silent as they walked back through camp, slowly being drawn back into the world of the living after being in the land of the almost-dead. And as men gave their greetings, made their bows and salutes, Boromir the Penitent was slowly replaced by Boromir the General. But Rhoswen did not let her hand leave his arm all the same. The men drew him back to their world, to the present world, without even trying, a salute there, a report of one or two sentences there. Another captain stepped forward for a longer talk with his Steward, something about a punishment Boromir had dealt out the week before, and Boromir stayed longer to talk with him while Rhoswen hung back in the road, surveying the scene.

As she scanned the campsites, a familiar face caught her eye – a young boy, it the livery of the Tower Guard.

"Bergil!"

On hearing his name, Bergil's eyes snapped upwards from where they had been staring at the fire, and he startled, seeing Rhoswen, and then, beyond her, Boromir. The boy leapt up to run away, choosing an unfortunate moment when another soldier was passing in his path.

"Here now, boy, when your Captain's lady calls you, you answer her!" the man said gruffly, nodding to Rhoswen as he steered the page back to the path. Bergil would not look at either of them, and he shuffled his feet in the path with a kind of resentful air. He had an unkempt look about him, and there were some stray straws on his tunic, as though he had been sleeping with the horses – a likely story, since Narthion said his bedroll had been untouched since that unfortunate afternoon when Bergil had…interrupted his lady and his master.

"Bergil, we have been very worried about you," Rhoswen said gently, trying to catch Bergil's eye. When that did not work, she caught his chin, to turn his face towards hers, but he turned away just as quickly, scowling at the effort. Rhoswen glanced at Boromir, and then the little scene they were beginning to attract, and decided this was a matter best decided somewhere else. She took Bergil's shoulder, squirrelly and resentful, and marched quickly back to their own tents, Boromir following a few steps behind with somewhat amused reticence. At the entrance to the tent Rhoswen held up a hand for Boromir to wait outside, which he did with just a hint of a smile.

Inside the tent, Bergil was still simmering with bitterness. "Now, young sir, what is this all about?" She asked in her best motherly, authoritative tone. The pageboy did nothing except stare at the carpet, though his eye did jump for a moment to his master's bed. Rhoswen's authority slipped down a notch. "It's about the other day, isn't it?" she said, watching his face carefully. For all that Bergil tried to play the impassable courtier when he could, he was still only a child, and children do not play impassable very well. His scowl wavered, and finally he nodded, still unable to look at Rhoswen.

"You know Boromir was not serious when he said he would murder you, Bergil," Rhoswen reminded.

Bergil muttered something about how it didn't sound that way. _Well, it wouldn't, when he was interrupted as he was,_ Rhoswen thought to herself, but pinched that thought behind her lips. "And I would not have let him. You are my pageboy, too, you know, and before you were in his service as well. If anyone has claim to punishing you, it is me."

There was silence, and Rhoswen swallowed, trying to think of what to say next. _It will have unnerved him, a little, to have seen that…he will probably not have known…_ "Bergil, what you saw – "

"You don't have to give me the talk," he spat resentfully. "I'm not five. I saw Bera behind the Boar's Head doing it with the butcher's son." It was clear from his voice that he did not think much of this episode and he found the whole business disgusting.

Rhoswen pinched her lips again. _Yes, but Bera is not someone you admire, is she_? _Bera is not a fine lady outside the common world in your mind._ "I am not a tavern whore, Bergil, nor am I like to be, if the world is kind. He is my husband, and it is not wrong." She had to remember to soften her voice a bit. "And I do not have to tell you that I want a baby of my own." How often had she spoken of it before, and how often had he seen her playing with the little children, and joined them with games of his own?

She could see his anger weakening into something else, for his lips were trembling and his shoulders were stiff, trying to remain brave. "No," Bergil said, his shoulders cramping and his head lowered. He was playing with something in his pocket, and as his hand slipped, Rhoswen saw that it was a ribbon – was it…no, certainly not, it couldn't be…her ribbon? Yes, yes, it was – it had to be! The ribbon she had given him at her first end-year here in Minas Tirith, the ribbon that went with his wooden sword and the kiss that Boromir had grudged him and teased him for, saying it would beggar the house of Stewards. Much abused little thing the token was now, fraying at the edges, in need of a good washing, but hers all the same. She would have thought he'd have lost it by now. But then, it seemed she hadn't realized what the favor meant to him.

And then Rhoswen saw it – it had been the sight of them that had driven him away, but dwelling on the thought of a baby, their baby, that kept him gone. He saw himself being replaced, driven out – unwanted. A knight without a banner – a champion without a lady to defend. All these months she had been his to take care of, in his little boy's way, and now the captain that she loved so much had come back, would give her the son she wished for, the son that was not him, and there was no longer any room in her life for Bergil, son of Beregond.

Oh, how to tell him it was not so!

"It is a lot of work, having a baby, you know," she began carefully, watching him. "I will get fat and tired and eternally hungry, and afterwards! There are errands of all kinds to be run, and they are forever wanting things – to be sung to, to be spoken to, to held and bounced and cosseted. The first one will be hard, with no older brother to help me." There, that would do him for a little while before she moved in on the other issue. "And I will always need a champion."

"Won't your husband be your champion?" he asked in a small voice.

"But what if he does wrong by me?" His gaze snapped up, anger flaring in his eyes as if he might leap to her defense then and there. "I do not think it likely," she added quickly, "but if he should, I shall need another strong arm to defend me. And my children will need a friend. Someone I trust, someone who will teach them to do well and speak well and tell them wonderful stories and sing marvelous songs. For you know, Boromir cannot sing at all. I shall need… someone like you."

Bergil nodded, brave face still on, but finally he broke down and began to cry, and Rhoswen gathered him up in her arms and held him, letting all that anger, all that fear come out. _You are more like a mother to him than most women he has known_, she remembered someone saying, and to lose your mother? That was the worst feeling of all. "I would not send you away, Bergil, not if the King himself asked it of me. You are too important to me," she said, stroking his hair and taming down the wild little curls at the back, finding a few stray bits of stray and drawing them out with a smile. _You shall always be like the first of my sons, though you are not of my blood_, she promised herself, as Bergil blubbered and sputtered apologies into her dress.

When Bergil had quite exhausted himself crying, he withdrew a little, sniffling and wiping his eyes trying to recover a little of his eight year old boy's dignity. Rhoswen found a towel to wipe his face with, and waited patiently while he straightened his tunic and tried to find any more loose bits of straw.

"Does he hate me very much?" Bergil asked finally, turning to look at Rhoswen.

"Hate is a very strong word, Bergil, and I do not think Boromir would ever hate you. Though let it be a lesson that you must not rush to enter a room – that you should always call out before entering a tent, or knock at the door." _Or else we may have something very near to hate, _she theorized, blushing a little at the thought.

Boromir had been sitting outside with Narthion at the fire, though he rose when he saw the tent-flaps opening.

"Boromir, Bergil has something that he would like to say to you," Rhoswen said, her hand reassuringly on Bergil's shoulder so he would not lose his courage.

"I am sorry about the other day," Bergil said very laboriously. "And I have learned my lesson about rushing."

"I hope you have apologized to the Lady Rhoswen, too," Boromir observed, keeping his stern taskmaster face on as Bergil nodded. "Then all is forgiven, and we need not speak of it again."

"Thariel, weren't you saying you needed a bit of help with the laundry?" Rhoswen asked quickly, wanting to move on from this moment as quick as could be contrived. Thariel, to her credit, saw that immediately, and took Bergil's hand with reassuring authority to steer him towards the washing troughs promising to teach him a surefire way how to get blood out of a garment, a skill he would most certainly need when the season for tourneying began.

"That's a conversation I hope I do not have to have again any time soon," Boromir said, flatly and honestly, when Bergil and Thariel were out of sight.

"He is young, and afraid of other things. It was not just _that_, Boromir. Our sons will be different. But you will have had the practice. I don't think that's the last of the trouble we'll have with that one where girls are concerned."

"Our _sons_?" Boromir looked at her with a kind of gleam in his eyes, and Rhoswen sighed and shrugged.

"I promise nothing," she said plainly, though that did little to wipe the smile from her husband's face. "I am afraid I must ask your forgiveness, too," she added, turning to him and trying to change the subject. "I fear my time here is reaching its limits. I must go back tomorrow."

"So soon?" Boromir asked. Rhoswen nodded.

"If I delay any longer they will think me dead! Besides, I have matters I must see to. And you cannot deny I have kept you from your work, too."

"Yes, you are the most troublesome of burdens to my time," Boromir said with a smile. "But if you must leave tomorrow, I think you should _keep me from my work_ a while longer…"

"At this time of day?" Rhoswen asked, letting herself be pulled into the wonderful coolness of the tent. If Boromir gave her an answer, no one else heard it – only the sound of the Steward's deep laughter.

* * *

Rhoswen was nearly fully dressed when Boromir woke, perching lightly on the edge of his bed to pull her stockings onto her feet. "Have you got another lover's bed to warm?" He asked, sitting up sleepily and burrowing his unkempt bearded face in the crook of her neck, tickling her terribly.

"No," she said, resisting the urge to laugh and crinkling her shoulders up at the feeling of his beard against her skin. "One of you is quite enough."

"Then why are you leaving at this gods-forsaken hour? The dawn's still abed herself."

"Boro, if I stay any longer, the king will have me killed," Rhoswen said reasonably, tying her garters and rising from her perch on the mattress to straighten her dress.

"He's a sensible man, he wouldn't do that," Boromir countered, sitting up and rubbing more sleep from his eyes.

"If he is a sensible man, which I fully believe, he will have realized by now that since I have come here you have not finished anything. And it is a long ride back to Minas Tirith, and I have petitions to hear." Outside there was a light jingle of harnesses – obviously Narthion had done as she had asked, despite the early hour. Thariel had almost not been so obliging, but she had remembered her duty after a few good shakes of her shoulder. And Rhoswen could hardly punish her for curses hurled while half-asleep.

"Is this to teach me a lesson about being left behind?" Boromir asked. Rhoswen allowed herself a brief laugh and a knowing grin but left saying nothing, content to kiss her husband on the cheek and leave him think on it awhile anyway.

Rosy-fingered dawn was still a ways from fully drawing back her bedcurtains, but there were still a few sounds here and there from the rest of the camp. Men muttering in their sleep, whispering around watchfires, the gentle wicker and snort of horses murmuring amongst themselves as well, the seldom snap of wind on tent-ropes. Most of the watchmen stood and saluted when Rhoswen walked by with her horse in hand, Thariel and a few other retainers behind her in close file. A few birds sang, though no one was quite sure where they might have their nests, most of the trees around Minas Tirith having fallen to the axes of the Orcs. Around the camp, a low mist hung in places where the ground sloped into little wallows, easily burned off by the morning's sunlight, which was a little closer to showing itself in full strength.

The gray morning, that was what men called this time. It had been a long while since Rhoswen had liked these hours. Back at home in Anfalas, this was the only time of the day she could truly call her own, before Maireth came to dole out her duties for the day. Butfter Boromir had left her in Minas Tirith, she had despised the silence, one more thing that she did not have help in bearing, two or three more hours in which her darkest thoughts had nothing to distract them. But now?

Now the spring was coming, and the flowers were peeking through, and the birds were returning, and she was rising warm from her lover's bed. In silence, she could easily be content.

Then, just as soon as that, they were riding away from Osgiliath. The column kept silent, most of its members still waking up. But what better way to wake than with a slow-burning sun rising on your back to warm away the morning chill, and to see that sun come up on the City of Kings? Rhoswen felt the hours pass as more and more of her body warmed in the sunlight. Minas Tirith out on the western horizon looked a sight in the morning dawn, white walls turning pinkish with the coming day.

Someone was speaking now, but Rhoswen did not hear. The warmth of the sun was making her think of the previous night, and the light of a single candle, and her husband's hands.

_Well, how have I learned your game?_

_Exceeding well. But you've been playing against a squireing boy too green to know the niceties, and that I cannot continue. _

And gods, how he had changed the game. Her legs were sore to think of it, though being astride her horse did not help either.

"My lady?" Someone was speaking again. Rhoswen pulled herself out of her memories to turn and look at Thariel, riding beside her and evidently trying to have some kind of conversation while her mistress played the wanton again in her mind. Her newest attendant still looked a little reticent, probably about the business this morning with the cursing, but something was obviously important enough that she would speak with Rhoswen about it.

"You must forgive me, Thariel, my mind was wandering. What were we speaking of?"

"I was wondering what you thought of Narthion, my lady. The Lord Boromir's squire."

"He seems a fine, dependable fellow," Rhoswen said truthfully. "A good voice in him, too, when he lets himself sing as he did last night when he thought we weren't listening… Why do you ask?" she inquired, her mind still a little distant.

Thariel colored a little and ducked her head. "No reason," she said, a little too quickly, and Rhoswen kept her smile to herself. Good for Thariel, then. Narthion was a little young to be thinking of marriage, but at least Arthion's daughter was turning her mind in the right direction, away from heroes out of legend and towards the real men of her own city. Rhoswen's mind, however, was content to wander, back to last night, to a tent warmed by a brazier and the love of two bodies.

_This will be the last we see of each other for a little while._

_Speak not of little whiles. It is a long while yet until the coronation. And afterwards! We shall have no time to ourselves._

_Then you must have something to remember me by._

_Enough of that,_ Rhoswen scolded herself as her saddle hitched a little, drawing her out of her dream again. _You have had your honey-moon and that is that. There is no time for idle day-dreams now – the city turns its mind to work and so should you_.

The sun was fully risen now – and even at this morning hour the city was working! The fall of hammers was constant now that their goals seemed apparent and achievable. _The King, the King is coming!_ The city was alive with it, the thought that soon, so soon, they would be able to tell their children, their grandchildren, that they had been there to witness history being made. There was rebuilding taking place all over the city, with architects and master masons and carpenters digging deep into the knowledge of generations to rebuild the city that had stood nearly unchanged for time out of mind. It was a chance for all to see something new come to pass, to shape something newborn and pristine that would stand for another age.

Books that had lain untouched since the times of the trueborn Númenoreans were brought out, and their wealth reexamined. For their king was a warrior, it was said, but a scholar, too, a man of fine thoughts and fine words, a poet in his own right. That alone made Rhoswen's heart joyful.

But there was wealth and joy in other places besides old books. The Númenoreans had been masters in their own way where wood and stone were concerned, but the Dwarves were matchless in their mastery of all the arts of making – and the King Returned counted friends among all the peoples of Middle Earth. He had lived amongst the Elves, broken bread with the Halflings, and ridden into battle with a Dwarf, Gimli, the son of Gloin, of the line of the Longbeards, who had insisted, when he saw the damage that had been done to the beautiful stonework of Númenorean days gone by, that a Dwarf should rebuild some part of city. And so he, and as many craftsmen as could stand his exacting attitude and hard-headed stubbornness, had been given the task of the gate.

Work on the gate itself had not started yet, as the walls went into repair first with Gimli supervising the work, his russet red hair and shorter stature making him extremely distinctive among the masons he held council with, off to the side of the road leading into the city.

"My lord Gimli, how goes it?" Rhoswen called, urging her horse out of the column to stay a while and talk with the craftsman. The dwarf turned from his worktable, his smiles genuine and welcoming as he lt the other masons take their leave.

"Oh, well, Lady Rhoswen, exceedingly well. This is good stone, and old, and it will see many more years, once the new gate is on. Let me show you the plans – there are to be a series of panels, with all the kings and stewards in high relief, and the signs of all the great houses! Such gates the masters of Moria built, once, and may build again!"

And on he went, talking of this piece or that he had seen on his travels. He was a craftsman talking of his work, and it took no celebrated mind to see that it brought him great pleasure to do so. "You must excuse my rudeness, Master Dwarf, but I must away. I should very much like to see the plans, though. Have you time to come and take dinner with me, some night? I would like to see them, and to hear more tales of Moria under the mountain." That was a story Boromir had not told in full, as if he did not think it was his to tell, and he could not describe the great dwarf-city of Dwarrowdelf, except to say that of the Company, Gimli could do it the most justice.

But the mention of Moria made Gimli's face fall. "It is a sad story, Lady Rhoswen. There are others I would share first."

"Bring me a tale of lovers among your people, then, or great heroes. I dearly love both."

"Great heroes and lovers? The dwarves do not care overmuch for stories such as that, Lady! But there is – Yes, there is! I shall tell you a tale my father told me, of Clever Idunn and her Golden Apples, if I can remember it in full. You shall like that one, if the Lord Boromir spoke true."

"He knows my taste in stories exceedingly well," Rhoswen said with a smile. "It is settled. You shall name the evening, and we shall talk of the plans, and your stories, and then of your kinsfolk, too – the Lord Boromir has told me you have sent to Erebor and to the Iron Hills for craftsmen. We must find a place in the city for them to live, while they are here."

"When they come the real work can begin! And they tell me the Lady Dis may come as well, which is a great honor."

"The Lady Dis?" Rhoswen asked, curious now to hear about a female dwarf, that elusive half of the race that were so seldom seen and even more seldom talked of. Eowyn had been telling her the other day some story they had in Rohan about dwarf women and beards, but Rhoswen hadn't really paid all that much attention to it.

"She is the true Queen under the Mountain, the daughter of Thráin and sister of Thorin Oakenshield, direct descendant of Durin the Deathless! And a peerless lady among our people. Well versed in the lore of our people, very wise and very learned in our arts."

"When she comes, she will be most welcome," Rhoswen said, meaning every word. "You shall have to tell me of her, too, when you come for dinner, for she sounds a fearsome lady. May your gods smile on your work, Lord Gimli!" she said warmly, directing her horse's head back to the main road, and her little company of riders, once more in the lead as they passed into the city.

There was no need for subterfuge here, in the lower city, where she was not so well-known. She could be any one of hundreds of nobles returning to the city for the Coronation. The Lady Rhoswen was sick in bed in the Houses of Healing – here was simply some lady of the out-country to attend upon the King's Court, riding with her maid and a few attendants without livery. Old townhomes on the upper levels of the city built in generations past to house lords and ladies when they came to attend upon the king were being opened up again, aired out and cleaned for the arrival of their masters from far-away fiefs. Rhoswen remembered the house her father had rented to come to the city all those months ago, with its stained glass windows and ancient feeling furniture, and her heart twisted a little bit in her chest. _I will never be 'some lady of the out-country here to attend upon the court' again,_ she realized privately, as they passed the street where most of the nobles had their city mansions. _I am the wife of the Steward, the Lady of the City. I wait in state while others come to me._

_And soon, if the gods are kind, they will send our King a Queen to treat with others as I must treat today._

Their horses they left in the stables, taking a back-passageway up into the servant's rooms, and from there, sneaking back into the Houses of Healing, where Rhoswen could change her traveling clothes into the gray plainspun gowns she usually wore when she was tending the sick and emerge from her room as though she had never left it. She glanced in the mirror as Thariel took her hair down from the heavy braids she had ridden back with. Her color was too good for a woman who had supposedly been sick for the last three days. _Oh well. Every lie has its own unmaking in it._

"If you were gone any longer, they would have started saying prayers to bring you back from the brink of death," Maireth said with her usual sternness.

"That is what I told Boromir when he did not want me to leave," Rhoswen replied. "He agreed with me when it was explained people might go into mourning if I was not seen for much longer. Though that prospect seemed to please him more than it did me."

"He wants the people to love you, as he loves you, and as they love him. That is not so bad in a husband, I think."

Rhoswen smiled, remembering warm touches and the embrace of arms that felt more safe and secure than the strongest armor. "No, it is not so bad at all." She allowed the warmth to stay for a moment more and then took a deep breath before rising from her dressing table and settling into her desk and the paperwork that waited for her there. "Well, what have I missed?"

Maireth collected her thoughts and ticked them off her fingers. "The lord Imrahil's outrider's arrived just this morning – the Lady Heledirwen and her company are due any day now. Many of the ladies have already arrived in the city and taken up residence – they will come for audiences this afternoon, if you 'are feeling well enough to hear them', as they were told. You'll have to get rid of some of that bloom in your cheeks, my girl, if you don't want them to think you were only playing at being sick and refusing to see them."

"We've rice powder that will give you a nice paleness, if you need it," Thariel suggested from her place near Rhoswen's chest, where she was folding her lady's riding clothes before she took them to the laundries to be discreetly washed.

"Thank you, Thariel, I may need it. Now, to work! I need to speak with the cooks about the state of our larder, before I do anything else. The ladies will have to wait until tomorrow. I do not suppose the kitchen matron will like having a supposedly sick woman in her kitchen – she will have to come here…"

It had been comfortable, sitting and talking and sleeping in idleness with Boromir, but work, too, was a comfort. She was a whirlwind for the rest of the afternoon, sitting down to dinner that evening with a kind of perfect fatigue around her, tired but content. The cook had been dully consulted, a menu agreed upon. The laying out of the tables in the Merethrond was decided, and who would use the gold and silver-plate and trenchers dully established as well, as had the plans for the feasting of the rest of the city. She had spoken with Thariel and the seamstresses about her own dress, but nothing had been decided – she would wait for Lottie to give her opinion before deciding on something once and for all.

She had meant to leave a little time at the end of the day to read some of the letters waiting for her as a result of her prolonged absence from the city, but her mind was too busy to allow reading even one with any semblance of comprehension, and she opted instead for crawling into bed and burying her face in her pillow. Yet sleep would not come. She turned over twice, fluffed the pillow, flipped it to the cooler side, tried counting sheep (an old childhood suggestion that had never worked for her, anyway) and dragged another blanket over her feet before she realized it was not what was in her bed that was troubling her, but what wasn't.

The sheets on the other side of her bed were cold.

Rhoswen looked at the other end of her bolster and sighed, turning over one more time and trying to tunnel further into her bedclothes in futile pursuit of some elusive comfort._ Imagine Boromir is there. Imagine him filling up the bed – the mattress tips to his side a little. He's sleeping already. You can hear him breathing – snoring, even! His back is warm. Nothing will bother you while he's there._

And with this string of comforting, calming thoughts, she finally found herself drifting off to sleep.

* * *

Well, this chapter was going to be longer, but it was going a lot of wild places and I decided to get out while the getting was good and leave the drama-drama (anyone remember Serawen?) to the next chapter.

My own life has (and will continue to have) a disproportionate amount of drama for the next several weeks because I have a new job! A full time, benefits-and-paid-time-off, five-days-a-week job! At an arboretum! _The_ Arboretum, in my neck of the woods. Been going there as a visitor since I was ten or so, so this is kind of one of my dream jobs.

So I may be even quieter than usual for the next month or so. Apologies for the somewhat random Hobbit references in this chapter – my Boromir action figure has been joined on my desk by a Thorin action figure, and they're sitting here plotting all kinds of nefarious things.

Also, speaking of nefarious things, I have acquired a tumblr. If you're on that site, you should follow/message/generally harass me. Mercurygray. It's not hard to remember.

A review, a kind word, a bit of encouragement are always appreciated and treasured! (A big thanks last chapter to e Gia, who gave me my first foreign language review on this story! Gracias, Gia!)


	36. Chapter 36

_Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.  
Because your lover threw wild hands toward the sky  
And the affrighted steed ran on alone,  
Do not weep. War is kind._

_-War is Kind, Stephen Crane_

* * *

It was good sleep, but it could not prepare Rhoswen for everything.

The ladies of the city, she decided, she would put off for one more afternoon to go and survey with one of the heralds the route the coronation parade would take through the city. It was a lovely day, and to be quite honest, her head was beginning to ache with figures – and the ladies of the city could be infinitely worse. At least the relative stability of masonry and the promise of a good walk was not quite so mentally consuming as calculations on how much wine and ale should be distributed to each circle of the city relative to its population from the last census, nor quite as dull as listening to carefully practiced trite compliments.

After what seemed like the longest time spent trying to find a writing tablet and stylus, the herald, his assistant, and Rhoswen were finally on their way down to the city gates, intent at starting at the bottom and working up in the order the seven levels of the city would be approached. They were only down to the gate at the fifth level, when one of the house's pageboys came running, all lanky limbs and limp hair flying. "My lady, your lord brother asks for you! The Lady Heledirwen is come!"

_Valar be merciful. They're here._

The last of Dol Amroth's rearguard was milling about near the stablegates as Rhoswen walked past as quickly as she could. She had to be the first to speak with her, Lothíriel would never forgive her if she heard it from anyone else. The royal party was already inside the hall, the last of Heldirwen's ladies bringing up the rear of an impressive train of people. Erun would already be greeting them – he would not tell her, surely…

"Lottie!" Rhoswen cried, picking up her pace to go and greet her friend. The other woman turned towards the sound of Rhoswen's voice, and in the split second before Lothíriel turned and bolted away, Rhoswen had time only to see that her friend's face streaked with tears. And that could only mean one thing.

_Lucan._

She sprinted up to Erun, standing hopelessly in the hall. "Erun, what did you say to her?" Rhoswen asked angrily, ignoring the dozen other people waiting to speak with them.

"Nothing! I said nothing! I meant only to greet her, but I could not smile and I could not speak, and – and she knew." But by the time Erun had finished his thought, Rhoswen, too, was gone, having barely given her brother enough time to even begin speaking.

Lottie might have had the advantage of a few moments start, but she was running away into a place she had not seen for nearly ten years, and Rhoswen was not recovering from a shock as she was. It was a plain, obscure corner of the King's House that she lead the chase to, Rhoswen finally catching up to her when Lottie could, literally, run no farther, having found where the corridor finally ended. It was an out-of-the way passage, meant to house the King's retinue in days gone by when there was still a king, and courtiers still spent much time in attendance upon him, as part of his household, and the air was thick with forgotten memories and dust. There were no seats or benches here, as in other parts of the house, only a stone window seat, and it was here that Lottie collapsed, and Rhoswen went to comfort her.

Once she had thought to run away from the world, to cry alone and have the seeming solace of an unshared grief. But that did no good to anyone, least of all herself. She had not known then of the perils of such bottomless wells, but she knew them now, better than anyone, and she did not wish Lottie to be so alone and so drowning, especially when she could prevent it.

There were no words, only the open and firm embrace she offered and the warmth of her arms, and a willing shoulder to hold her friend's tears. Lottie wept freely, and Rhoswen with her, such as she had not been able to weep for her brother before. Then came the lamenting wails, and the buffets and blows, and Rhoswen took them all with her own face full of tears, until Lothíriel could cry and hit her no more. And still she held on.

"If I could bring him back for you, I would," Rhoswen spoke softly into her friend's hair.

And that seemed, in that moment, to be enough.

Heledirwen and Ivriniel looked up as Rhoswen shut the door to the room behind her with a reassuring heaviness and took a moment to sigh softly.

"She'll live," she said, the older women looking more than a little out of countenance as they sat, sequestered, in Rhoswen's solar. Lothíriel had spurned her mother's attentions, and those of her aunt, as Rhoswen had brought her back to her own rooms, wanting, for some strange, adolescent reason, only her friend's comfort. "I've given her a posset, and she should be asleep soon enough, and that should help. I'm sorry she wouldn't speak to you, Aunt," she said, addressing Heledirwen. Imrahil's Princess was clearly struggling with something, more than likely the idea that her daughter had considered herself today too old for her mother's love and care.

Or perhaps it was that her daughter had been in love, deeply in love, with a man she could not have, and it had come as a surprise to her mother, who thought she and her daughter kept no secrets from each other.

"She's had a hard fall today," Lothiriel's mother said plainly. "It is good that you were there to catch her."

"We've all had a few hard falls these past days," Ivriniel said soberly. She brightened her face a little and looked at Rhoswen. "But a few good surprises, too, in spite of it all. Our Lady Hostess here plays her role well, do you not think, sister? It is a long way from the days in Dol Amroth when she was a frightened, quiet little thing."

Heledirwen recovered herself a little and smiled, dimly, nodding. "It is indeed. She does the House of Stewards great credit," she said, taking Rhoswen's hand to give it a maternal little squeeze, which made Rhoswen smile, in spite of the ache inside.

"The House of Stewards and the House of Swans," Rhoswen reminded them, returning her aunt's gesture with one of her own. "Both my houses, and both alike in dignity and good repute."

"And where is the rest of the House of Stewards today, while we ask after them?" Ivriniel asked with a coy kind of smile, looking at Rhoswen with that jesting look in her eye that made Rhoswen color a little. "Where are my nephews making trouble today?"

"Out at Osgiliath. Faramir is only gone for the day, and Boromir will not return to the city until the coronation – which will be very soon, now that everyone is nearly here. And which reminds me – I shall need to find another time to speak with the heralds…" Rhoswen's voice trailed away as she gestured at one of the servants for a piece of parchment and her pen, writing a quick note and setting it aside. She didn't seem to realize the humor in the action until she looked up and saw both Ivriniel and Heledirwen smiling at her again, which sent another little flush to her face. "You laugh at me," she accused, which made Iviriniel, at least, smile all the more.

"You have a kind of glimmer in your eye when you say his name," Imrahil's sister observed frankly. "It does me good to see it. And have you seen him, since his return? Has he made time for his betrothed?" Rhoswen nodded, smiling in what she hoped was a secretive sort of way, and Ivriniel's smile turned to one with a knowing note. "Seen in more ways than one, then," the older woman hinted broadly, and Rhoswen had no shame at all in nodding a little and smiling, openly, now.

"We have had words between us, and…more than words and less, at the same turn," Rhoswen admitted, an admission that made Ivriniel positively jump for joy.

"And have they been good words, sweeting?" Ivriniel wanted to know. Rhoswen blushed furiously for a moment and then nodded unreservedly, and her aunt-by-marriage clapped her hands and let a little kind of jubilant cry catch in her throat, a cry that suddenly made Rhoswen remember Lothíriel, in the room beyond.

But Heledirwen saw the fear, too, and reached to pat Rhoswen's hand. "Fear not for Lottie, Rhos – she comes from stern stock. And she is a prince's daughter. She shall manage as best she can, when the time comes," Heledirwen reminded her niece. "Enough of problems not at hand. I daresay you have your hands full of this coronation business and could do with whatever help two little old ladies may give."

"Oh, do not say old! Never old! Say instead two experienced, noble, queenly paragons, and that will be the right of it!" Rhoswen said, recovering herself and going to find her plans, her lists, her precedence tables and swatches of fabric and tailors' bills and the thousand other bits of paper that were floating around this coronation and threatening to end her. "Now, here is the table, as I have worked it out, of who shall be doing the greeting, and here is the script of what they shall say, as the heralds have set down…"

By the time the Princess of Dol Amroth and the Lady of Belfalas took their leave of Rhoswen's apartments, it was well past noon. Rhoswen should have been in the Great Hall an hour past, to receive the families now coming into the city for the Coronation, as the Stewardess ought to do for her honored guests, and apprise them of the situation, and ask after everyone's family. It was no great matter – someone would have made her excuses. She was Boromir's wife, and accorded all the privileges of that exalted state, and one of those was to be late to her audiences if she so wished. And it was not as though this were an idle lateness; she had been about the work of the City. And she knew she could not make a habit of it.

Faeldes had, indeed, dismissed the audiences for the afternoon, claiming, as was her right as Rhoswen's chief attendant, that her Lady was not to hear court this afternoon, a fact for which Rhoswen was very, very glad indeed. She made informal meetings in the corridors with some of the courtiers who had been very slow in leaving, her best court face on, smiling and nodding and taking mental notes she would be sure to pass on to Faeldes later so she would not forget them.

It was slow going, but finally, she had managed to speak with every one of her late-leaving guests. Everyone, that is, except one – a dark-haired lady she did not recognize, who stayed far to the back of the room and seemed to be avoiding her. Well, she would be avoided no longer. Rhoswen was not in the mood to play games just now – there were seamstresses to meet over the matter of the king's banners and livery for an entire household. She approached, as quietly as she could, hoping not to stir the woman into running away again, touched the woman's shoulder, and the face that turned to meet her made her jump a little in surprise.

"Lady Serawen!" Rhoswen exclaimed, hardly recognizing the heavily pregnant woman for the court beauty who had left the White City last summer after her marriage.

"I have come for the body of my husband," the lady of Pinnath Gelin said stiffly, answering a question Rhoswen had not asked. "And for the coronation of our new king. You've not changed so much," she added, looking Rhoswen over with the same look the younger woman remembered so well from her first day in Minas Tirith, a mixture of disdain and downright hatred.

_You've not changed at all,_ she thought to herself, saying out loud, "You're looking very well."

But that was a lie, and a bold-faced one at that. Pregnancy had not been kind to the court beauty – the vitality was gone from her honey-gold hair, and it was bound back, in the manner of a married lady, with evident disdain. There were hollows under her eyes, as if she had not been sleeping, and her fingers were swollen around her rings. But more than anything else, it was her bearing. Other women could have the same troubles and still look radiant when they were with child, their present happiness at the thought of becoming a mother overbearing all else in their countenance. But Serawen seemed to look as though the light in her entire being had gone out. And it did not suit her at all.

The Lady of Pinnath Gelin pursed her lips and frowned. "You were always a terrible liar, White Rose. You think I look hideous. And I do," she said with distaste, shifting her hand along the large curve of her heavy stomach. "What man on earth would find this attractive?" she asked in a low voice to no one in particular, her eyes darting to Rhoswen's maidenly curves with jealousy. "Well, lead on to my dear departed husband, then," she said as an afterthought.

Rhoswen felt her blood go cold, and suddenly, all the morning's talk of Lucan, and Lothiriel, and slighted love, and the sight of her dearest friend weeping as though the world would end rose up in her like a hurricane, and was just as swiftly let loose.

She seized Serawen's wrist and practically dragged the lady through the King's House, down into the Houses of Healing and into the mortuary rooms deep within the mountain, bodily pulling her former rival into the room where the body of Hirluin lay, already shrouded, only missing the cloth that should cover his face, the last part of mourning, traditionally reserved for his wife to place. Death had sunken his face, carved hollows into his skin where once it had been full-figured and friendly. His mouth, which once had smiled with such abandon, was now grave in death as it had never had cause to be in life.

"Here is your husband," The White Rose spat, looking at Serawen with a blazing eye. "He loved you, far more than you deserved to be loved, and gave you the gift of himself while he was living, and he has left you with a treasure beyond measurement. It is the last gift you will give him, and if you do not love that baby as is his due as the son of Hirluin and the heir to Pinnath Gelin, then I swear by all the Valar who are listening now I will take him and all his patrimony away from your care and you will be what you have always feared – penniless and alone." She felt a fire biting at her eyes, her ears, the very blood in her veins screaming to be let loose upon this woman, this hateful, spiteful creature who cared so little for the thoughts and needs of others.

It was an anger such as she had seldom known, and it terrified and thrilled her at the same time.

Serawen stood still for a moment, astounded, and then laughed, quietly, more out of amazement than amusement. "You say that now and I believe you. The White Rose's thorns," she repeated quietly to herself. "And people said you had none. My husband never stopped speaking of you, you know," she said, a clear vein of disgust in her voice. "It was almost as if he were mourning a dead wife. I hated it," she hissed. "You got everything that should have been mine. The city, the title, my husband's…fawning attentions. Boromir."

_Yes, lady, wish for that! Wish for the city, and the title, wish for all the sorrow and the heartache it has caused me, and I will let you have the whole of it, freely and gladly! But keep your wishes far, far away from the man whom I love and you would only ruin._ "Boromir chose to love me," Rhoswen interjected sharply, "And Hirluin might have done the same. He did love you, when you were first wed."

"I was perfect!" Serawen shouted, her voice echoing strangely in the cavernous room. "No man should have chosen you over me."

"Ivory statues are perfect, too, but men desire warmth in women," Rhoswen observed candidly, her voice as cold as the stone walls of the shrouding room. She felt very much like a piece of steel newly drawn from the fire, all hot, sharp edges and patterned blades, and she did not much want to stay with Serawen any longer. She felt if she did she might come close to bodily harming the woman, and that was a crime she could not allow herself to indulge in, especially when she was great with child. "I will leave you here to mourn in peace," she added, just as coldly.

It was a long walk back to Rhoswen's apartments, and she thanked all the Valar for it, for it gave her time to let her anger to burn away. She even took the longest route she could find, going far out of her way to make sure she'd calmed again. There was no reason Lottie should have to suffer through any of that. She had enough to occupy her at the present.

The door to the sleeping chamber was still mercifully closed, and Rhoswen sat down heavily in one of her chairs in her solar, feeling her body relax and spread out against the chair's support. She hadn't realized how much of her muscle had been unconsciously clenched as she had spoken with Serawen, and suddenly, all of the taut cords in her arms, her shoulders, her neck and her jaw, even around her eyes seemed to slowly hum with pain.

And then she let her head fall slowly back against the top of her chair and wept.

Not tears of anger, nor really tears of sorrow. Simply tears to wash the uncomfortable tide of too many feelings away. And the crying did more good than she could have thought possible. Dabbing her eyes with a piece of linen, Rhoswen checked her face in the mirror, pinched her cheeks a few times to return some color to her face, and went to go call the seamstresses who were working on the liveries.

The seamstresses came and went, giving their report on their progress in quiet, reverent tones and leaving with Rhoswen a sample of the livery meant for the King's retinue – a boy-sized tabard, richly embroidered over with the white tree with the crown aloft it in all its glory. She'd send it out to Osgiliath for Bergil to gloat over. She was just setting into the inventory of the treasury's festival banners for the high table when there was a creaking from the door into her room. A very disheveled Lottie emerged, looking a good deal calmer than when she had first arrived but no less worse for wear. She saw Rhoswen, gave a bleak smile, and came to sit closer to her, fresh tears springing up as Rhoswen took her in her arms.

"It's not a lie, is it? He's really – "

"I'm afraid so," Rhoswen said, petting Lothíriel's hair down in places where it seemed particularly badly matted. _Now, this is love_. There were a few tears biting at her eyes to say it, but it was true. She'd expected to cry a little, when she talked with Lottie about this, but her sudden fit of weeping earlier seemed to have calmed that need.

"Father had made him Captain – was going to make him Captain-commanding after the battle was over! I would have talked him into giving him a castle, or a…a watchhouse, perhaps. He would have been able to marry me! We would have been happy."

"He would have been very happy," Rhoswen affirmed. _And if he had lived, and you were still parted by a marriage to another man, the parting would have been easier_. But this? To be parted by death? _You will never lose sight of that._

"I wish we could stay here forever," Lothíriel said miserably, "And I would not have to go out and be… joyful with all the rest. But Mama would not let me, I do not think."

"I would not let you, either," Rhoswen said strongly. "And…" Should she give that blow? It was a heavy one, and it would hurt. "Nor would Lucan," she added, softly but still strong. It was a low pass, a dagger straight to the heart, but it needed to be given. Lottie looked at her with wounded eyes. "I knew my brother, Lottie, and I knew the way he loved you, and he would rather that you went and laughed and danced and remembered him that way than sitting and weeping. He did not like dolorous romances, my brother. He loved a bold and wild lady who always smiled."

"Oh, Rhos, must I?" Lottie begged.

"I will not order you thus," the White Rose said reasonably. "I would not order you to anything. I merely remind you of it, and you may take it as you will. But you will set off my numbers for dinner, if you do not come, and I am not sure I can forgive that," she threatened lightly, and that, at least, made Lottie laugh.

"Oh, well, if it will upset dinner," Lottie said as if she were agreeing, tears fresh on her face again. She leaned her head against Rhoswen's shoulder and for a while the two women sat in silence, each deep in her own thoughts.

"Have you met him?" Lothiriel asked suddenly.

"Who?"

"The king. Aragorn the son of Arathorn." She pronounced the name as though he were a particularly foreign sounding character from a story.

Rhoswen felt a little relieved Lottie's mind had found something else to focus on for the present. "Yes, I have, several times. He is very kind, very gentle, and a great leader of men. A poet, too – I think you'll like him. Boromir does, anyway, but the affection of men is different." She gave a small shrug and lapsed into silence for a moment before remembering what she was going to tell Lottie. "I saw Serawen this afternoon." A simple enough statement, and yet filled with such feelings as could not be spoken of!

Lothiriel had heard enough stories in Dol Amroth to fill a small book about Serawen – her expression changed almost immediately to indignation, as suitable distraction as any from grief. "And what hateful trash did she spew at you? I hope you didn't listen."

"No, it wasn't that. At least, not all of it. She – she came for Hirluin's body. And it is very plain to see she is very great with child. His, I hope, though she does not seem to care one way or another. She'd rather not have it at all since it's ruined her figure. And the things she said! I was close to raking my nails through her eyes," Rhoswen admitted.

"I wish you had," Lottie said vehemently, "It would have done you good." She added, quieter, "I know how you feel about having children."

"I only hope that baby gets more love from her than Hirluin did," Rhos said darkly. "I told her I would take it from her if I heard otherwise."

"A wise woman come to judgement!" Lothiriel cried, in the manner of a herald shouting a poem of overwrought praise in the streets, and the two women fell together laughing in the manner of old friends who know they laugh only to keep the darkness at bay. "Oh, Rhos, I've missed you."

_Oh, Lottie, I've missed you, too._

Lothiriel stayed Rhoswen with that night, though she almost insisted otherwise. But in the end, Rhoswen's more sensible will, remembering a few too many sleepless nights alone in Dol Amroth, prevailed. She herself could not sleep, though it had nothing to do with a foreign body in her bed, as had sometimes been the case when she and Lottie had shared a bed in the City of Swans. That part of her that lived to mother and protect others wouldn't let her fall asleep until she was sure that her friend was sleeping. But that was a long time coming, for there was a small, sad sniffling for a long, long while after the candles had been blown out.

The Princess of Dol Amroth had always kept different hours than Rhoswen did, preferring to get up much, much later, and she was still sleeping when Rhoswen dragged herself out of bed to begin getting ready for the day. But it was not in Rhoswen's nature to leave a friend alone, especially one in such a precarious place as Lottie, and she was sure she could find something to occupy herself with while she waited for Lottie to wake up.

It was several tenuous hours of piecework on this and that before Lottie, too, emerged, rubbing at her eyes and yawning, glancing around the room to see Rhoswen, dressed and washed and already hard at work.

"Were you waiting for me?" she asked, sounding a little suspicious.

"Waiting? For you to get up?" Rhoswen feigned surprise. "I'd have been waiting until the mountains came down. I had some letters to finish reading. Though now that you are up, I might as well ask what you want to do today."

"Do? Rhos, do we have to _do_ anything?" Lottie begged, her eyes wide and puppyish as she looked at Rhoswen.

"Well, if you'd like to sit here all day I've no objection, but you are my guest, and I must entertain you or distract you, as you will."

"You've got something in mind already," the other woman accused, watching as Rhoswen gave a non-commital shrug and shuffled her papers for a moment.

"I need to see what flowers we can manage for the coronation, from the gardens. The heralds have said we must have flowers, or flower petals, or some such nonsense, and like a good little matron I must do as I am bid and find them. It'll be a bit dull, but you won't have to talk to anyone."

"Do I have any other options?"

Rhoswen thought for a moment, not having considered this possibility, and her eyes lit up. "Well, there are several very elderly and long-winded ladies who will be meeting this afternoon to check our table linens. I'm sure they'd love to gossip over you while they mend napkins."

Lottie made a face. "Flowers it is then."

_I thought you might say that_. The White Rose of Gondor tried not to smile and put her papers back in order before going for her cloak.

In Dol Amroth, it had been Lottie's habit to chatter constantly when moving from one place to another about any topic at all – the weather, the state of current fashion, the latest poem she had read. Lottie now did none of these things, content, it seemed, to walk in silence. And Rhoswen did not trust herself to speak on sundry matters, for every road her mind went down seemed, somehow, to lead back to Boromir, about what he would say or what he had said, a joke he had told her or a moment she had shared with him. She wanted so badly to share all these things with Lottie – but not now. Not yet. How difficult it was to keep such good and wonderful thoughts bottled up inside, when they wanted sharing! _That would be cruel to her, and I am not that friend that would so quickly forget her grief in order to share my joy. I must not be that woman._

The Houses of Healing had been stripped to a bare staff to send whatever healers were necessary out to Osgiliath, and they were quieter now than Rhoswen remembered them ever being before. They took a cursory tour of the gardens without seeing any particularly promising patches of growth – it was still early, did the heralds not understand that? – and spoke with several of the gardeners to confirm that they had not missed anything. One of them suggested sending a few women further afield beyond the city to gather wildflowers, which might have started their growing season earlier, which Rhoswen thought was better than going back with nothing at all.

Rhoswen's eyes glanced casually to Lothíriel as the gardeners conferred amongst themselves about which field in which place would have the best blossoms at the present time, and was just in time to see Lottie ineffectively stifle a yawn. _A few more minutes of your patience, my friend, and you shall be rewarded._

"Thank you, gentlemen," Rhoswen said, when the gardeners were finally finished. "You've been most helpful."

"Are we done?" Lottie asked as her friend collected her from the corridor where she had been standing.

"Not quite yet," the White Rose said with a small smile. "There is one thing more I would do before we leave. Someone I must see."

Lottie sighed, but did not complain, and Rhoswen's smile grew a little. She led Imrahil's daughter back into the Houses, to the portion usually reserved for patients staying longer than a few days. Their rooms were larger, and special gardens and courtyards were given over to their especial use. Rhoswen motioned for Lothiriel to stand in the corridor, and rapped her knuckles on the stone of the doorframe as she wrapped her body around into the courtyard. "Are you up to receiving visitors?" she asked someone outside of Lottie's view, stepping through the doorway a little.

"That depends," a male voice answered. "Who is it?"

"Faramir!" Lothíriel cried out in the hallway, recognizing the voice, and ran to embrace her cousin without a second thought, making Faramir stagger for a moment under the sudden weight of a woman too used to a stronger, sure-footed version of her cousin.

"Lottie! Careful now, I'm not quite as I should be," Faramir said, trying to regain his ground while his cousin stepped back, looking a little ashamed. He recovered well enough before Rhoswen had a chance to say something, laughing and smiling as usual, but Rhoswen, just as suddenly, was no longer worried about him, but Éowyn.

The shieldmaiden had been on her knees near one of the planting beds, trowel in her unhurt hand, digging out spaces in the dirt for the line of carefully tended seedlings from the planting houses. Judging by the book near Faramir's seat at the table he had been reading aloud to her while she worked. She, too, had risen when she heard the noise, but there was no love in Éowyn's eyes, only a hurt kind of hate. Looking over the whole scene a second time, Rhoswen realized why. Here was Éowyn, a woman of Rohan, an outsider, wearing a mousy-brown workdress and faded apron with dirt on her knees and in the creases of her hands, and here was this vision of Gondorian womanhood, all lovely gowns and perfect dark hair and with so many smiles and kisses and embraces for Faramir, the esteemed captain of Gondor. How close they looked, how intimate and …full of love. Faramir had been Eowyn's entire world since Rhoswen had commended him to Eowyn's help, and now, she could almost see the Shieldmaiden's tentative little world here in Gondor unravel. Rhoswen took several quick steps to Éowyn's side and wrapped her hand quietly around Éowyn's own, fisted now in anger. Éowyn's gaze snapped to Rhoswen as though she were ready to raise her trowel as a weapon.

"This is the Lady Lothiriel," Rhoswen said quietly, no judgement or censure in her voice. "The Lord Faramir's _cousin_." She felt the hand relax a little, some of the hate leave her gaze to be replaced instead by a sort of fierce longing. _How I wish I had with him what she does_, her eyes seemed to say. Rhoswen understood that feeling, too. "She will want to meet you," the Gondorian whispered. Éowyn's hands flew again to the knees of her dress, and a hundred other little defects she was now keenly aware of, and Rhoswen was obliged to take her hand again for fear she'd hurt herself. "You will have much in common with her," The White Rose assured the shieldmaid. "She loves to ride, and to hunt, and the old stories of valour and great deeds. Lottie!" She called across the courtyard, drawing Éowyn away from the planting bed. "This is the Lady Éowyn, of the house of Thengel. The warrior who slew the Fell Beast and his Rider."

Lottie's praise, just as effusive as her affection had been for Faramir, set Éowyn back a bit. "Oh, Lady, we have not had a woman warrior in Gondor for an age! And we have sorely needed them. I will make every poet in the city sing songs about your deeds. Rhoswen has told me she thinks we will be great friends."

"Rhoswen's judgement is usually sound," Éowyn managed, still a little overwhelmed by it all. Rhoswen remembered that feeling, too. It took a little while to get used to Lottie's passion on first acquaitence.

Lottie beamed and looked over at Rhoswen. "Yes, it is," she agreed, and the trust, the absolute friendship in her eyes made Rhoswen's throat tighten a little. "Though I cannot agree with her decision to trade your spearpoints for spearmints," she added, looking at the little garden rows Éowyn had been tending. Already Rhoswen could see that some of them were planted too high and a few a little low, and the rows were not at all straight, but that was criticism that did not need to be given.

"In my country, at least, I think we have had enough of war. We shall need healers now, as well as ready spears. The Lady is teaching me a little of what she knows, for when I return."

"And a fine student she is, too," Rhoswen said, for the simple pleasure of one of Éowyn's tentative smiles. It was true, after a fashion – Éowyn did so want to learn, even if it was only little simple things that a child of ten would already know in Gondor. Her mind was not as quick as Faramir's when it came to deep philosophies, but there were times when even she outpaced him with simple wisdom. She had a keen desire to show her mastery, and a child's joy when that was praised. At times she was both an old soul and a young one, for when she and Faramir took their walks they spoke at length of war and old songs and what made a battle worth fighting like the most ancient of generals, and when she and Rhoswen worked in the Herbarium, writing an herbal full of simples and Éowyn remembered another plant or its properties without any hint from Rhoswen her face would become aflame with a child's pride.

"Well, fine student or no, she will put down her trowel now and come and tell me the whole story. I want to tell my grandchildren that I heard the Lady Éowyn tell me, from her own lips, how she slew the Witch-King." And so saying, Lothíriel gently pried the trowel from Éowyn's hand and lead her back to the table where Faramir had been sitting with his book of poetry.

"I don't know where to begin," Éowyn said as she and the other two women sat down, now a little embarrassed that she should be thus singled out for praise and adoration, looking to Rhoswen for some kind of prompt.

"Begin where you started with me," Faramir suggested, his hand lightly touching her arm as if to bring her back down to earth, and Éowyn's gaze came back to him. He held it there a moment, all radiant steadiness and confidence and warm smiles, and she seemed to calm and relax a little, her smile more sure of itself. "Begin with Edoras."

And so she did. She spoke of her brother, and her cousin, the loss of her mother and her aunt and the world that so valued the bright swords and sharp spears of war, of her training as a shieldmaid, and the days not so far distant when men who had seemed like great heroes to her, Boromir and Aragorn, had passed through her uncle's halls and how she had sought to win their respect and favor, and, failing that, to win reknown in battle.

Rhoswen had heard the story before, from several people, including Pippin's friend Merry, who had ridden with the Lady all the way from Rohan, disguised among King Theoden's host, and she did not need to listen to the story quite so closely as did the others. She contented herself with quietly studying the others – Éowyn, now fully caught up in her storytelling with her attentive audience smiling and nodding in all the right places, seemed in her element with all eyes upon her, no trace of her former temerity in her face or body. It was not idle boasting, nor the borrowed stories of a green soldier who only praised battles because he has not seen them, but the cool, measured speeches of a woman who once thought too well of war, and now sought to make the truth known. Faramir sat by and listened quietly, as was his wont, his gaze reassuring, his smile, while small, brightening every so often when Éowyn's eyes tracked back to him, studying her in his own way.

And Lottie. Lottie sat by quieter than Rhoswen had ever seen her, taking all of what Éowyn said in with amazing grace. Her throat looked tight and her face oddly serene, as though she were willing herself not to make a sound, any sound, for fear of being thought rude.

She had been up in heights and down in valleys since coming to Minas Tirith, and Rhoswen had really not been sure what her reaction to Éowyn was going to be. She had not expected the effusive, bubbling welcome that Lottie had given her, for that was the Lottie of days gone by, the princess without a care in the world, the romantic whose thoughts were given over far more often to tales of lovers and great heroes rather than grim stories of war. This woman sitting with them was a different woman, surely, and Rhoswen thought she was seeing now more of how Lottie truly felt inside, a woman who was only playing the light, capering girl she had been for the sake of the people who had always known her that way.

_Yes, we are all a little different now. A little older, a little wiser, a little more attentive to the world's ways. But It is a time for changes. A new age is coming, and we must be ready to meet it._

* * *

The new age came without clouds or rain, or any promise thereof, with a slight breeze and no chill to speak of. It was a perfect day for anything, really, but an especially perfect and auspicious day for a beginning.

The city was full of quietly bustling activity, all hands and eyes and ears fairly bursting with excitement at the prospect that soon – so soon now! – they would see a thing that had not happened in Gondor in an age or more.

They would see a King return to the Tower of Guard.

But for a king to return, he must first look the part, and the King today was still having a bit of reticence about his costume. Boromir watched, carefully silent, as Aragorn studied the mirror and tugged again at his crimson surcoat, Narthion waiting patiently with the wooden dummy holding his mail and the elaborate breastplate and pauldrons that would go over it. He was not only a returning king, but a victor in war as well, and that meant he would return wearing his armor.

It was a long way from the Ranger Boromir had met in Rivendell, his beard and hair hinting at long sojourns in the wild away from the comforts of home and a hot bath, the clothing he had worn at Council almost seeming too rich for him, looking very much borrowed. But nothing about him looked borrowed now. In the last two months – in the last week, even! – Boromir had seen him change, from the way that he stood his ground to the way that he talked with the men. It was what had always been there, hidden from view, and was now being allowed out into the sunshine: the courtly manners of the elves he had learned in his youth and the natural grace and command that carried them so well.

"They are waiting for us, my King," Boromir said, as nonchalantly as possible. Aragorn turned from the mirror to look at his friend with a slim smile.

"Are we in a hurry?" he asked, bringing an immediate smile to Boromir's face.

"Oh, the people of Minas Tirith may wait as long as they like – they have been doing so for near a thousand years, and an hour or more will not hurt them. But there is a woman waiting for me in that city who will not wait a minute more than she is required, and she will not speak kindly to me tonight if we set her plans awry. Our hour draws close, and there is still the ride to the gates yet."

It was an odd remark to bring a smile to Aragorn's face, but it seemed to do the job required. The soon-to-be King nodded, all decision and action once more. "Thank the gods for the goad of women," he said, somewhat cryptically, and gestured for Narthion to come with the mail.

_In panoply of ancient kings, in chained rings he armoured him_. That was a line from a poem, somewhere. Boromir couldn't remember which poem, or where he'd heard it, or why it was coming to mind now, but it gave him a sort of comfort that a sudden memory always brings. It felt right, this moment, this time, the slow slide of chainmail and the gentle clinking as Narthion buckled on Aragorn's breastplate. They could not go back from this.

They _would not_ go back from this.

Boromir stepped out from the tent, momentarily surprised to see there was already quite a crowd outside the entrance. He smiled, and stepped aside to let Aragorn pass. As the Dunedain stepped forth into the sunlight, a great cry went up in camp, and Boromir watched his friend's face break into a smile. And the cheering did not stop, either – it followed them to the horse pens, up into the saddle, and well into the ride from Osgiliath, until finally the King, his Steward, and the honor guard that attended upon them were well away.

They would ride to the gates of the city, and greet the soldiers of the city on the first level, from whom they would have to ask entrance. At each of the six great doors someone would be there to meet them, and admit them to the city—six doors, and six groups asked to represent the city. The soldiers, and the farmers of the lower town, the guildsmen, the low court, the high court, and Rhoswen and the women of the city last of all.

There were banners waving upon all the battlements, and people lining the parapet of the first level like so many spectators at a sporting match. They cheered and called and waved their flags, but Boromir, and Aragorn, kept their eyes forward, focusing on the single figure standing in the gateway to the city – the symbolic watchkeeper, the soldier, a veteran of many of Gondor's wars, who had been asked to represent his fellow soldiers today.

The trumpets blasted out a trill of clear, silvery notes from every level of the city, and a reverant hush fell.

"Who is it that asks entrance here?" the man said, standing his ground as if he, too, was a king in his own time.

"Boromir, the son of Denethor the son of Ecthelion of the Line of Hurin, the Steward of this place."

"And who is it that comes with you?"

"I bring with me Aragorn, son of Arathorn son of Arador of the Line of Isildur."

"And what is his business in this place?"

"He is come to be our king."

"What tokens does he bring with him, that we should know him to be the one we have watched for?"

"He has the sword of Kings, the sword of Elendil that was broken in Mordor, and it has been remade, and he wears the ring of Barahir, that came out of the west with the sons of Elendil. He has brought with him the victory out of Mordor, and the company of the city unharmed, and it is by these signs that we judge him to be the one we have watched for."

"Enter, then, and be prosperous, and may the soldiers of this city go with you!" The man said happily, stepping aside and letting the procession enter into the city, adding a company of guardsmen to follow behind on foot.

And so they came back into the City of Kings.

Who is it who comes with you? What is his business in this place? What signs does he bring? Again and again they answered the questions, and again the gates opened, and the train of people grew longer with farmers and high and low guildsmen, and the nobles of the city, until at last they came to the doors of the sixth level, the doors that would take them to the doorstep of the King's House. It was here that Rhoswen stood, alongside her handmaidens and many other women of high nobility here in the city. She wore a dress of white, the color of the house of the stewards, worked over in cunning silver embroidery, and long lappets of pearls were in her hair and around her neck.

"Who is it who comes here?" she asked, her face fine and fair and noble as any queen, and Boromir was able to fully smile as he gave his answer.

"It is the Lord Boromir, your husband, and the Steward of this place."

"And who do you bring with you?"

"I bring with me Aragorn, the son of Arathorn."

"And what is his business in this place?"

"He comes to be our king."

"He comes clad for war, and his soldiers are behind him. Does he seek to bring war into this place, or discord?" She was as stern as any judge and yet her gaze seemed as kind as summer.

"He does not bring war with him."

"Will you act on surety for that promise?"

"I will," Boromir said, and meant it with all his heart. He thought he saw Rhoswen smile at this.

"We have heard the praises of our sons at the gates, and the joyful songs of our daughters at the parapets, and the sureties offered for you, and we agree here, now, with all that they have seen and said. Take then this key, Aragorn, son of Arathorn. It is the key to your house, which we have kept for you. May your sons be as strong and numerous as ours, and your daughters lights upon your living."

Aragorn bowed and took the key, an old, mottled black piece of ironwork that carried with it all the weight, implied and real, of the lordship of the city, and, fitting it into the lock, drew the bolt back with a shuddering sound. The guards at the insides of the doors pulled them open, and Aragorn, taking Rhoswen's hand, ascended into the courtyard of the king, with Boromir and the entire company following behind them.

* * *

And that, I think, will do to be getting on with for now.

From here, I've got a gaping hole to fill in the next part of the story, and I'm open to suggestions. What would you, dear readers, like to see next? Suggestions will be taken with all the seriousness they deserve. Praise is nice too. Criticism accepted with an open heart.


	37. Chapter 37

_A special thanks to all the new followers and reviewers, especially those folks who left suggestions last chapter! You know I love to hear from each and every one of you._

_An extra special thanks due in this chapter to Cellorocket, who let me borrow her lovely little dwarfess Riva for this chapter. I hope I have done justice to the little scamp in Cello's story with my older and wiser version. If you'd like to hear more about her, you can read Cello's absolutely mindblowingly fabulous story The Toymaker and the Widow. You can find the story in my Favorites._

* * *

_A capable wife who can find?_  
_She is far more precious than jewels._  
_The heart of her husband trusts in her,_  
_and he will have no lack of gain._  
_She does him good, and not harm,_  
_all the days of her life._

_-Proverbs 31:10-12_

* * *

It was a banquet that for generations afterwards would be referred to with a fond glimmer in the eye of the story's teller, an event that would never be matched even by the most peerless of hosts.

That night, they feasted like the heroes of old, leaving no flagon undrained and no dish untasted. A party that signaled, in case anyone had missed the previous signs and portents, that the king was returned, and with him came prosperity, and plenty, and joy.

_Bring us in our feast-time pleasure, food and song in ample measure_, the saying went in Gondor. And such measures! They watered no wine, spared no expense. The gallery above the Merethrond was filled with minstrels, while in the hall below servitors ran to and from the tables, filled to the brim with the absolute best the kitchens of Minas Tirith could provide and the King presided over the whole room in general splendor.

Or rather, the King sat and took very quiet dictation from the woman at his elbow on this point of etiquette and that person's name and rank, while her husband sat on her other side and tried not to look cuckolded by this somewhat unorthodox arrangement. At least, that was what some of the city matrons imagined he must have felt. If they had bothered to ask Boromir, he would have quickly put their fears to rest and patted his young wife's hand with a proprietary assurance and gotten a beaming smile for his troubles. He, however, was content to let Rhoswen do what she did best and enjoy the party on his own terms, which for now meant watching his young cousins attempt to sing all twelve verses of an old Gondorian drinking song.

As for Rhoswen, she was sitting back in her chair a little and smiling at the obviously intentioned parade in front of her. "Well, they were quick about that. I daresay you've met all of the girls of marriageable age in the city tonight," Rhoswen joked lightly as yet another lord presented his wife, his young sons, and, predictably, his fashionably gowned and radiantly smiling daughter for his new king's inspection.

She meant it well, but Aragorn only smiled weakly and took a small bite of the elaborately piled plate in front of him, his eyes distant. He hadn't had much time to eat between greeting Gondor's nobles, but he did not seem to be hungry, either, picking at his food like a bird, or a nervous lover.

_A nervous lover…_

Finally, Rhoswen could place that look. She smiled, and leaned in closer to the king's ear. "I wish she were here," she said in what must have seemed a lover's whisper, just loud enough so that only Aragorn could have heard. The king turned to look at her with some surprise.

"What?"

"The woman you're thinking of right now," Rhoswen expanded. "I wish she were here, for your sake." _And mine. Though I do not mind this endless parade, it is not really mine to queen over. Nor do I want it to be._ Aragorn's smile widened a little.

"I wish that, too," the King said, but made no move to offer more on the subject. _Boromir will know. Men talk of those things with other men easier than with women. I'll ask him of it later._ She glanced around the room, taking in Amrothos and his friends deep in their cups and singing raucously with the Rohirrim, with Lottie down the table looking on with a kind of pale sadness in her eyes, no doubt imagining Lucan among the young men at her brother's side. Faeldes was midway down the hall with her own daughters, not quite high-born to have made the trip to the king's table to present them. They seemed to be enjoying themselves in the present company, and Faeldes was talking animatedly with the elderly woman next to her, who continued gesturing across the hall at a man who must have been her grown son and who, judging by his mother's growing interest in Faeldes, was either a bachelor or a widower with young children of his own.

"Go and enjoy the company," Aragorn said, catching her eyes wandering. "It is your feast as much as mine. I'll survive for an hour or so on Boromir's slight charm."

"What's that about my charm?" the Steward asked upon hearing his name, catching only that his king and his wife exchanged some kind of conspiratorial smile as Rhoswen rose from her chair for a circuit about the room, weaving in between pages carrying full flagons of ale and wine and elderly guildsmen looking for the garderobes and the odd pair of tipsy and tittering young women speculating on what passed for lovemaking in Rohan and whether the flaxen-haired warriors of the North wouldn't mind a bit of southern spice in their bedrolls tonight.

"Oh, and the king, too, I wouldn't mind having a pass at him, all tall and proud like a hero in a story," one such woman (scarcely out of girlhood, really) was telling her companion.

"I don't see him at table any more. D'you think he's gone already?"

"Better luck to her that got him! Here, there's one of his captains, let's go talk to him."

Rhoswen made a quick glance in the direction the women were pointing, to the high table and Éomer's vacant seat. Where had the King of the Rohirrim gone? Rhoswen was fairly sure it had not been to an out-of-the-way corridor with a lady in hand, but with enough wine, one never knew.

Somewhere above her head the minstrels were leading into a chorus of "Who Wished to Hunt" and the White Rose decided to make herself scarce before someone asked her to sing, and made her way through the crowd to the side halls outside the feasting chambers. It was considerably quieter out here, though if she headed in the right direction the sounds of a busy kitchen began making themselves heard. A few other sounds, too, out here in the half-lit hallway, a lot of feminine giggles and a male voice telling her to shush. Rhoswen rolled her eyes and headed in the other direction – only to find the very man the other women from earlier had been looking for.

Éomer looked almost forlorn in his festival clothes, quietly and slowly nursing the goblet of wine in his hands and glancing every so often over his shoulder back into the hall. He seemed surprised that anyone would find him out here, but he stood when he saw Rhoswen, bowing quickly (and somewhat awkwardly) in greeting.

"They look for you in the hall, my lord king," Rhoswen observed quietly. "And there is much… speculation about what made you leave."

"A king cannot feast as a marshal feasts," Éomer observed, taking another drink from his cup and leaning back against the wall. "Every time I pass by a mirror I stop and wonder what my Uncle will say when he sees me. And then I remember he cannot. The crown still does not feel right on this head."

"I understand that to be a common problem," the Gondorian affirmed with a smile. "A king's head is sometimes not his own to ornament – or to lose."

"Especially to lose," Éomer said, looking wistfully at the next flagon of ale going by and gesturing the pageboy away from his cup. "Nor … is his heart his own, either," he added, somewhat softer, his eyes glancing backwards for a moment into the hall.

_Now, there's a telling set of words._ "Does my lord have a question I might answer on the matter of hearts?" Rhoswen inquired lightly, studying Éomer's face with careful precision. When Éowyn spoke about her brother, Rhoswen's mind had formed the image of a man of wild and bold action, first into the fray and the last to leave, not overly cautious with his life and his limbs. But this person before her seemed a different man entirely – perhaps kingship and the sudden descent of the crown had made him choose his words and actions a little more wisely. _Or perhaps boldness only takes a man so far in a foreign land among strange people._

"There is...a lady, with dark hair and sad eyes, who sits near the Lord Imrahil. I have seen her walking with you, and with Éowyn, and... and I would know her name. A man … can't ask his sister these things," The king asked, looking less like a king and more like a young squire, confused and tentative about the business of love. And Rhoswen knew exactly of whom he spoke.

"Her name is Lothíriel. She is the Lord Imrahil's daughter."

The king nodded, his lips tight as if a little overwhelmed by this. _You are a king! It is not for you to be frightened of asking any man for his daughter!_ "Do you know why she is so grief-stricken?" Éomer asked, after what seemed an age's worth of silence. "I…I knew a woman with a look like hers, once, is all."

Rhoswen drew a deep breath, and it seemed a dagger to her throat. _No one else has asked me to tell this story yet. I do not know if I can._ "She was in love," she said, her voice shaking like a leaf. "His name was Lucan, and he was the third son of a poor house. Having no land to call his own, he took service with another lord, and gained renown in battle. Never immoderate, and always kind. He had a strong heart, and a strong voice. He loved her as a poor man loves a princess, with his whole heart and with no hope of rising to her station. She knew this as well as he did, but always dreamed that one day he might show his worthiness for her hand. He lost his mother early, but was always courteous to women. Especially his sister." She paused, and saw Éomer's expression was deep in the midst of concern. She felt a sudden wetness on her face, her hand flying up to blot at it in shame. "Forgive me," she begged, blinking back the unsought tear. "He was _my_ brother, and he is dead."

"Forgive me, lady, for reminding you," Éomer King said hastily – the courtly manners of the south seemed strange on him, and Rhoswen had to smile a little, to see so mighty a man struggle with his words so.

"The time for grief will pass soon enough, and the time after that should be for love. The Lady Lothíriel is my good friend, my Lord King, and I would not see her stir too long in sorrow," she said, if he needed any more encouragement. "Once it was she who drew me out of melancholy, and if I could I would now do the same."

Éomer nodded. "Before …my cousin – before Théodred…" He seemed to be having trouble with his words, and paused a moment to take a breath and collect himself. "There was talk in my uncle's house of an alliance with Gondor, and the house of Dol Amroth. I suppose the thing will come to me, but…I did not think much on it until now." And his glance back into the room said, _Until I saw the lady._

Were it from another man her hackles would have risen and she would have bid him never consider the matter again. But to see Éomer thus entranced, thus mystified – it won her over entirely. "The lady is proud, and her heart is a little bruised. But I think in time, she could see things otherwise." Rhoswen watched Éomer's eyes, lingering over where Lothíriel sat in the crowd of Amrothian courtiers, sitting by looking pale and withdrawn as those around her were laughing and chattering. "And her friends would welcome the effort. She is not often sorrowful, and she would lead a hall as merry as this one, if she had a strong heart to match her."

This suggestion seemed to unnerve Éomer, a little, but he bowed gratefully all the same. "I thank you for the advice, Lady."

Rhoswen stood for a moment, taking it in and then, quickly, turning to catch the king before he returned to the feast. "My lord Éomer!" He turned back to her. "Should you want more advice, I would be happy to give it. My door is always open to you."

The king smiled, nodded a second time, and then returned to the hall, his voice lost amidst the general din. Thinking twice on it, Rhoswen turned to watch him, following his path through the clamor up to Imrahil's chair. The Prince of Dol Amroth stood, sitting down as the King of the Rohirrim took the empty seat next to him, and the two men began talking.

_Yes, that is good_, Rhoswen thought to herself, smiling privately out in the hall. _It is as a new age should be – full of promise. It would be good for Gondor, and for Rohan – and for the both of them, _she realized_. He is what one of Lottie's heroes ought to be, and she was made to wear a crown, or lead a country, or both. Now we have only to make her see it. But that will come with time. Perhaps when we're better settled the king can host a tournament, like the kings of old did, and the champion can crown a Queen of Love and Beauty…_

She let the beautiful dream dwell in her mind's eye a while and let her gaze take in the rest of the high table – Imrahil and Éomer, Faramir and Éowyn locked in some private conversation of their own a few seats further down, Boromir and Aragorn talking to yet another lord and his winsome, sweet-eyed daughter. The last bit of the tableau was a curious study, both men wearing their most polite, politic faces as the father droned on his daughter's qualities and the maid herself blushed and smiled. Boromir's gaze, in a moment of true boredom, scanned the room, and somehow he found her in the doorway, a brief smile alighting on his face.

Rhoswen felt something inside her heart melt a little. _I would not part with that smile if the heroes of this world or the next one asked it of me. _

The night was young yet. There would time enough later in the evening to keep the smile all to herself. For now she would enjoy the party – and meditate a little on what Éomer had said.

* * *

_As bronze may be much beautified__  
__By lying in the dark damp soil,__  
__So men who fade in dust of warfare fade__  
__Fairer, and sorrow blooms their soul._

_Like pearls which noble women wear__  
__And, tarnishing, awhile confide__  
__Unto the old salt sea to feed,__  
__Many return more lustrous than they were._

_- As Bronze May Be Much Beautified, Wilfred Owen_

* * *

It was a long time before the coming of the King felt like the beginning of a new age. If people had expected the mountains to fall and the hills turn to dust, they were disappointed. The Rohirrim had departed, leaving in the city the body of their fallen king, and many of Imrahil's people, too, had left to go back to the coast, though some of their womenfolk had stayed, to keep the Lady of the city company. Life went on much as it had before the coming of the king, though the upper levels of the city were more heavily occupied, and their leader, unlike Denethor the Steward before him, kept his doors open to all comers.

His Steward, too, was busy enough, keeping in good order the Tower Guard and the city courts and a dozen other small armies who kept the city in repair. But not tonight. Tonight, he was entertaining one of his friends. It was Gimli who was enjoying the privilege of being Boromir and Rhoswen's first formal guest as a married couple. Little had been seen of them since their wedding, and overeager gamesters were already laying bets about the nature of their first child, and how soon he (or she!) would come.

It had been a simple ceremony, their formal wedding, slipped covertly into the social calendar only a few weeks after Aragorn's coronation and carrying with it, in its air of general mystery, the certain cachet of high rank that some people love to gloat over. Those people, of course, had not been invited, for it was only a small gathering of friends and family, and the bridal pair, having been blessed with a generous amount of sensibility when it came to choosing friends, would not have tolerated the vain and blindly ambitious among their number.

So they had been away from the world of the city for a week together, enjoying their own company in Boromir's apartments, now very much committed to their role as a marriage chamber rather than bachelor's quarters. Gimli had been very quick to compliment the new decorations, including one very fine tapestry in a far corner of the room that depicted a hunter kneeling down to coax a deer out of a thicket of brambles, a compliment that made both husband and wife laugh a little and turn the talk to other things.

And now that the meal was over, all three of them were sitting before the fire, where Gimli was making good on his promise that he would tell Rhoswen stories of the dwarves. And in great quantity, too, jumping from stories of Gimli's childhood in Erebor to those he had heard growing up from his cousin Balin, including the promised tale of Clever Idunn and her Golden Apples, (which is now so commonly told we will not repeat it here) finally coming around to their trek through the dwarf Kingdom of Moria, about which Rhoswen had heard only a little from Boromir.

Both of them were learning that not only did Gimli have a great talent as a warrior, but also a prodigious memory, going through long stories spanning whole families on the genealogy tables with ease. And like all dwarves, that he loved a good meal and good company after.

"Has there been any word from Erebor regarding the king's request for ambassadors?" Rhoswen asked as Gimli raised his cup to his lips during a seldom-seen pause. She remembered that the next part of that particular story was not a very happy one for Boromir, and wanted to make sure Gimli didn't feel the need to tell it further.

The dwarf-lord set his cup down and nodded. "There was a courier – a week ahead of them, he thinks, it was to be two but he had a mishap with some goblins along the road. But they'll come! And the Lady Dís is with them, which should please your ladyship."

"The _Lady_ Dís?" Boromir asked, glancing at his guest and his wife with interest and some measure of amusement, having being one of those little boys who spent a good deal of his childhood believing dwarves sprang out of holes in the ground without help of the mothering kind.

Rhoswen shot him a warning glance, but Gimli, at least, did not see his host's amusement,

"The daughter of Thrain and sister of Thorin Oakenshield! You could not ask for a nobler advocate to the king, Boromir, nor a surer sign of the King's intentions to honor Gondor. They would not send so high-born a lady easily."

"But surely there is much work for her at the Lonely Mountain that such a far-off embassy would take her away from," Rhoswen wondered.

Gimli's face fell a little. "There should be, Lady Rhoswen, and yet there is not. Dain's wife, Thorin Stonehelm's mother, is a formidable lady, and she governs well. There is little place in a kingdom for a dead man's sister, even if she is one of the line of Durin. If I know her at all, she volunteered to come."

But more about the mysterious Lady, Gimli did not freely offer, nor did Rhoswen pry. After all, what was a week of waiting? Other emissaries would come, too, from the Easterlings and from Harad and all the other tribes of men who had bent their knee to Sauron, who was ever a clever bender of ears and twister of hearts. From Aragorn, at least, they would be dealt a fair hand, and a fresh start, if they desired it. And while they were in the city, they would receive the best hospitality the King of Gondor could offer.

"Honestly, you'd think someone would have bothered to clean in here at least once a century!" Thariel complained loudly through the scarf tied over her mouth, waving her hand in front of her eyes to clear the air after she'd shaken an age of dust off of some truly terrible curtains.

"You would think, Thariel, but that has not been the case. We'd best take these down, they're more moth-hole than material at this point," Rhoswen said, climbing the ladder herself to unlatch the curtains from the rod on which they hung. "Someone might have use for the rags. Write down we'll need another set in the book there. The rugs look passable, though," she said, glancing down at the carpets beneath Thariel's feet from her vantage point on the ladder. "And the pattern's a good one."

"I'll note that it should be beaten out," Thariel said aloud, making Rhoswen smile behind her own scarf. _We'll make a good housewife out of you yet, Thariel. _"Carpets to be beaten, curtains to be rehung, room to be swept and lavender to be burned therein. Candles, mirrors, beds and trundles, new linens for each, chairs and tables, to be of dwarf-size and delivered by the carpenters soon. Is there anything we're forgetting?"

"Food and water and wine, to be ready for them after they've seen the king, and a groom to stand at the door should they need anything. Though I think they may send him away, they're an independent folk, and don't like to be behold to anyone but their own kin. I'd set some flowers out, too, but they won't like those. No, I think we're ready here." Rhoswen came down from the ladder, watching two very grimy groomsmen take the curtains away and shooed Thariel off the carpet so another pair could begin rolling it up so that it, too, could go outside. Rhoswen had convinced (sweet-talked, more like) the training grounds master to lend her his charges for the day, so that all five-score boys, from the littlest pages up through the brawny squires in their twenties, were setting their not inconsiderable strength to beating out her carpets, curtains, and tapestries.

They were nearly done in this chamber, and the room would be swept soon anyway. Rhoswen and Thariel made themselves scarce as another few maids trooped in, brooms at the ready and hair tucked neatly up under caps and veils. They'd get the worst of the dirt and then scrub the floors after, and for that, they did not need extra feet to clean around. Instead, Rhoswen went to go survey the progress the boys were making on her textiles.

The carpets were getting cleaner, though the same could not be said of the boys. There would be baths tonight in the Boys' Quarter, she was sure. Bergil was with them, a new hair-ribbon of hers tucked into the pocket of his jerkin, telling stories and urging the younger boys on like any old commander. The older boys, meanwhile, competed to see who could make the biggest dust cloud or the longest stroke – trying all the harder, Rhoswen noticed, when Thariel came to make her rounds and attend the progress of the cleaning with her. Yet she did not speak to any of them, save Narthion, when he came bearing a bundle of rugs almost as big as himself. He stood a little taller as she addressed him, and spoke with a new authority to the other squires when she had gone.

"Bergil, how goes it?" Rhoswen asked, finally making out the figure of her page-boy amidst a sea of shorter, albeit no less grimy, little boys.

"Very well, Lady! We are almost finished with the hearth rugs, though Angamir put his beater through one and broke a great big hole in it," Bergil reported, casting an angry look at a smaller boy with pale hair.

"That is perfectly all right, Angamir, it was probably the end of its time," Rhoswen said, looking benevolently at the little boy, who looked like he was almost on the edge of tears at having been admonished in front of the company commander. "I would rather have them meet their end now, rather than when they are in our guest rooms. Well, I shall not detain you any further. Keep up the good work, boys!" she said, catching Thariel's eye and motioning towards the door. Thariel nodded, and came to follow without a single backwards glance towards the older boys, looking longingly after her for a moment.

"I think you may have made some admirers," Rhoswen observed casually as they went back upstairs.

"I didn't care for the way they were talking about you and Lord Boromir," Thariel said loftily. "I overheard them when I first came downstairs. They were not very courteous."

"Boys at that age seldom are. They'll come to it in time. We should probably call the kitchens for some water; I've got a good inch of dirt on me that needs washing off."

Their hard work paid off handsomely; Rhoswen was in the midst of a small debate, much in the style of the Courts of Love, with Thariel, Lottie, Merethel, and several others, when Narthion came in and bent his lips to Rhoswen's ear in private conversation. The rest of the room's conversation seemed to trickle to a halt, all eyes on the Steward's wife.

Rhoswen leaned back in her chair, surprised. "They're here already?"

"At the gates, lady, with the Lord Gimli," Narthion said, his voice no longer a secretive whisper. "Lord Boromir has gone to greet them, but their luggage is being sent up now."

"Ladies, you'll excuse me," Rhoswen said, rising from her chair with Narthion at her shoulder. "We have visitors I must see to."

"Surely someone else can go," Lottie complained. "We were just getting to the best part. Iorlas, tell her she can't go," she pouted to the musician, trying her best to get someone to persuade Rhoswen to her side. She'd picked the wrong ally, though.

"The Lady has a good sense of her duty – she must go where her husband has need of her," the poet said, his voice strangely toneless on the word 'husband.' And his eyes did not meet Rhoswen's, as if the privilege of catching her gaze were not permitted to him.

"Iorlas is right. We'll save my speeches for another time, Lottie." And having said this, she quickly followed Narthion out the door to where the dwarves were being quartered.

A small army's worth of boxes, trunks, and saddlebags were being unloaded into the corridor outside the rooms Rhoswen had set aside for the delegation from Erebor, and the small army responsible for them were busy carrying packages to and fro, under the direction of a very competent looking individual with an impressive ledger who was tallying the supplies as they came in.

"You'll be the lady Rhoswen? The steward said you'd be here. It is just this way, then?" the business-like individual with the ledger said, looking up from his reports.

"Yes, indeed," Rhoswen said, wondering why he even bothered to ask and putting it down to the peculiar politeness of dwarves. "If you have need of anything, please do let me know. We ask you please pardon the newness of some of the fittings. It is not often we have visitors of your race here in the city.

"Oh, quite cozy, this is. Not at all like we'd -" the dwarf stopped and checked himself. "Very kind of you to go through the trouble, mistress."

"The Lord Gimli gave me a little advice. You may thank him, if you must thank anyone."

"We'd thought to build a few houses of our own kind, but this will do quite nicely, for the time!" one of the passing porters said merrily. The head of the dwarves turned on his comrade and hissed at him in what must have been Khuzdul, the ancient secret language of the dwarves, chastening him. It must have been quite a tongue-lashing, for the younger dwarf went on his way hastily, not meeting Rhoswen's eyes.

"Yes, thank you, lady, we can get on from here. Ari and Lari, careful with that box!" the taskmaster exclaimed, watching as two of the younger dwarves started tossing a package between them like it was some sort of children's game.

"It doesn't weigh more than a featherweight!" one of them said, but they went back to simply carrying it all the same.

In a further corner of the room, another few dwarves, out of sight of their overseer, were unpacking a box, mirthfully throwing contents this way and that with skilled aim, to be caught by equally skilled hands. Not a single object ever touched the ground before its appointed time, even the heavy candlestands.

It was an attitude of playful abandon, and Rhoswen went on her way feeling a little lightened, knowing that the dwarves, too, found this exciting. They were young, or at least they seemed young, and this was to them one great adventure to a place many of them had never been. That was good, she thought. It would be an adventure for Gondor, too.

Some adventures require good stout shoes, and others a reliable walking stick, and still others a sharp sword. But there are some where a rich dress and a goodly amount of jewels will not go amiss, and the adventure of greeting the rest of the Dwarves' delegation was certainly one of them. Boromir reported, when he returned from his meeting at the gates the night before, that several of the dwarves had not believed him to be the important man Gimli said he was, purely on the basis that his beard was short, he was entirely with jewel work on his person, and his belt was far too plain. "Not a mistake we'll make again tomorrow," Rhoswen said, going to find her husband's richest robes, his chain of office, and have the Treasurer pull a simple silver brow-band from the treasury so that he might look a little bit more princely beside the King with his crown and robes of state. "Though I cannot do anything about your beard," she added, which at least wiped the frown off his face for awhile.

For herself, there was the spring-green gown that had been sewn as her wedding dress, and a net of winking topazes that had been found in Finduilas' store of jewels. There had been other, heavier collars, with richer stones to match, but even Rhoswen had limits, and if being thought a pauper was the price paid for a neck that did not ache at the day's end, she'd pay it gladly.

They were all arranged in the throne room, Aragorn in his high seat, Faramir and Boromir at the bottom of the steps and Rhoswen standing with them, with all the nobles of the city filling the rest of the room save for the long aisle down the middle.

"The emissary of the Lonely Mountain!"

And as the doors opened, the assembled nobles turned almost as one body to see who was now coming to attend upon their king. Though the dwarves ventured further abroad than some other races, they had not been seen in numbers in Gondor for time out of mind, and only those nobles who had traveled to the far north, (a very, very small number) where many of the Dwarf Kingdoms still existed, had ever seen one in living flesh. Gimli had been an oddity to them, taken merely as a kind of shorter man with an unusually long beard and a penchant for stone. Now, however, everyone might see that he was one of many, a people set apart.

And they were very much apart. From the way they walked (strongly, with quick and determined strides, almost a proud sort of gait, as though they owned the place) to the way they dressed (darkly colored, brilliantly patterned, very angular and very much done over with gold and silverwork, with lovely heavy buckles and beltheads and hard-soled shoes) to the manner in which their eyes took in the room (meeting all gazes cast their way with daring, steady stares of their own, and measuring closely each onlooker with a mason's precision, and a jeweler's eye for value.) They moved almost as a battle formation, going forward in good order rank by rank.

"Ah, see," said Gimli, off to Rhoswen's left, whispering to no one in particular. "The Lady has come!"

The Lady! Even with this comment, it was hard for the untrained eye to see that there really were women in the delegation, for all the dwarves, male and female, were possessed of long, luxuriant beards that they kept braided and bejeweled as any female of the city might wear her hair for a party. Rhoswen searched the crowd in vain, finally touching on a few who seemed slighter of build than the rest, slimmer limbed and with a little more ornament to them then the men. Yet all carried some manner of weapon, and all were unafraid to meet the watching eyes around them.

One of the men (at least, Rhoswen thought it was one of the men) stepped forward and gave a short bow, his arm crossed over his chest in greeting.

"To Aragorn, son of Arathorn, called the Elf-stone, King of the Realm of Gondor and the White Mountains, from Thorin, son of Dain, Stonehelm, King of Erebor and the Iron Hills, greetings and blessings of Mahal be upon you! We have sent from among our people those smiths and craftsmen asked of us by Gimli, Gloin's son, to aid you in the rebuilding of your cities after the destruction and desolation caused by the Unnamed One. As we begin our own kingship, we ask to treat with you further on the closer friendship we would like to lie between us in the Mountain and you in the City.

"Accept then, king, this humble present from the King under the Mountain!" And with a flourish, the dwarf-herald beckoned some of the company forward, letting them unbolt their caskets and lay them at the foot of the king's chair, opening them up for all to see.

As soon as the contents were laid bare, a gentle and surprised hush fell over those able to see the insides, whose contents were throwing up a strange, luminous light like moonlight on a still river. "Mithril," Rhoswen heard Boromir whisper, awestruck. And so it was. Mithril, moon-silver, the greatest treasure the dwarves had to bestow, mined chiefly in Moria, where both men and dwarf dared not to tread. A vast quantity, more than had ever been seen before outside of the realms of the dwarves.

"That is a kingly gift, and well given," Aragorn said, letting the attendants close their caskets and retreat back into orderly formation. "We accept, gratefully, this present from our fellow king, and ask that you keep it safe for us until you have need of it in your work."

"Many other gifts we have brought with us, O Elessar, for yourself and for your household, as guest-right for our hostelling here. And an ambassador to treat with you. Allow me to present you, o Aragorn Arathorn's son, Dís, Thrain's Daughter, Durin's Heir."

As she stepped forward, Rhoswen could see now why Gimli spoke of her as he did. She was not the eldest of the dwarves who had come, nor the tallest or shortest, but Rhoswen thought that she could say with some certainty that she was the most regal of the folk of Erebor here present. Her hair, long and intricately braided, was a deep, steely gray, and she walked with queenly decision in every step, with no hint at all that she was well past two hundred years old, a venerable age even for a dwarf. She wore a longer tunic of deep, royal blue, the skirts embroidered over in silver thread with cunning designs, the belt at her hips also heavy with intricate metalwork, her boots of strong leather with clever little buckles at their sides. Yet, for all her foreign looks Rhoswen thought she saw a little bit of why this woman was considered a beauty among her own people, for her eyes were a vibrant, beautiful blue, and when she smiled they seemed to sparkle like sapphires in her lined, grandmotherly face.

"We bid you welcome here, Dís, Thrain's Daughter," Aragorn said, extending his hand in the gesture of hospitality, an open hand, held out towards the visitor.

"And we accept your welcome, Aragorn, Arathorn's son," the woman said, her voice deep and resonant, words spoken in a measured, high-born kind of cadence. Like Gimli, she spoke without a trace of an accent, someone who has grown up speaking Westron alongside the ancestral tongue of her people. "We are honored that you would ask so great a task as the rebuilding of your gates to people who are not your own." But there was something in her voice, and her smile, too, which seemed to say to Rhoswen's mind _We would have thought you very foolish indeed if you had not asked at all._

"Your people have already been given residence in my household, which you may keep for as long as you desire, or you may take up residence in the city, according to your wishes. You may speak with my Steward," he gestured here to Boromir, who met Dís' steady gaze with a respectfully steady gaze of his own and bowed in greeting, "who will be more than happy to assist with any issue arising from your stay here."

"The Steward has been a good servant to you already," the Lady said. "We will talk further of our main business at a later time."

And that was that. The audience was over, the ambassador had been received and the traditional gifts exchanged. The Dwarves bowed their way out and went the way they had come, in strict formation, leaving the Gondorians behind in the hall to gossip over what had just passed, while Aragorn descended the throne and withdrew to the council chambers behind the hall to let his squires attend to his court finery and put the crown back into the treasury.

Gimli, meanwhile, had disappeared, evidently to have further words with his kinsmen.

"Well," Boromir said, once the squires had left and shut the door behind them. "I thought that went well."

"Indeed," Aragorn said, rubbing at his shoulders where the heavy medallions on his court cloak had settled into his skin. "Though Gimli will tell us more. I knew few dwarves on my travels, and they are a secretive folk, and not given to easy negotiations with other peoples. And the Lady Dís is long of this world, and well schooled in its ways. She'll be a hard one to treat with."

"She is one of the dwarves of the Exile, is she not?" Faramir asked, and Aragorn nodded. "She would know something of the troubles of the world, then."

What the Exile was, Rhoswen didn't know – though she'd heard Gimli mention it once, in passing, the other evening. Evidently a very sad period in dwarf history that Dís had lived through. She left the men to converse at their own leisure, thinking at length about the expressions of the dwarves as they had glanced at the hall. Did they find it to their liking? Or will this all be ruined for want of more ornament.

She did not have to think too long on it – their account of the dwarves was coming back in quick time. "Gimli! How did our new friends find us?"

"They have agreed there is some hope for the city after all, if the king can command such a fine performance, though they are still giving great thought to the stonemasons of the city," Gimli reported. "It all seems a little too…elvish for them. But they'll treat fairly with you, of that I'm certain. You got that much respect, at least. The Lady said she'll meet with you whenever you require."

"Excellent. Hopefully the work on the gates will commence soon," Aragorn said, dropping back into conversation with Boromir and Faramir as the three men compared mental notes. Gimli, his reports delivered, drew closer to Rhoswen, his voice lowered as if what they discussed was a state secret or some such.

"I have spoken to her – she has agreed to meet with you. Tonight, if it is convenient. And I am to tell you the delegation will dine in their chambers, if that is agreeable with you."

"That is most acceptable. I shall come after dinner has been served." Rhoswen was already mentally running through what the kitchens had been told to prepare for their guests. Meat, and plenty of it, though root vegetables were also acceptable, and the strongest beer the brewers of the city could provide, though they did not mind wine, once in a long while.

The apartments Rhoswen had set aside for the dwarves were in the interior of the city, less desirable rooms for Men, who loved light and windows and the promise of open air, but perfect for dwarves used to dwelling in the deep places of the earth. They had been quite a merry group, when bringing their luggage inside, but the rooms were strangely silent now, most of their occupants busy, no doubt, with craft of one kind or another.

"My Lady Dís," Gimli said, and a figure in the firelight turned, rising to come and greet them. " Lady Rhoswen, my lady Dís of Erebor, Queen under the Mountain, Durin's Heir, Mother of the Faithful, Thrain's Daughter. Lady Dís, the Lady Rhoswen, wife of the Steward of Gondor."

_A few more titles than the ones we heard from the herald_, Rhoswen thought to herself, though the Lady did not seem to think very much of them, for she gave a short little snort and looked askance at Gimli. "Not a queen," the Lady Dís correctly with a kind of amused sternness. "At least, not officially. And this the Lady of Minas Tirith about whom no one can speak ill, it seems." She looked Rhoswen over with a skeptical eye.

"I did not know I had that reputation, Lady, but I shall work hard to deserve it. It is truly an honor to meet you," Rhoswen said, bowing and taking the dwarf's hand in her own. "I am told the dwarves knock heads together in greeting – please allow that I do not think my own could take it."

Dís laughed, a deep, full-throated sound that filled the room and made Rhoswen feel all at once warm and safe inside. "You have a great respect for the customs of others, it seems, Lady. My people are grateful for that. It is not in every house that we receive such a welcome as we have had here."

"It is my duty to welcome all who come to the City. I do as best I can."

"The folk of Durin value hospitality, Lady Rhoswen. And we would tell you if we felt you had done us a slight where home and hearth are concerned. You spread a good table and lead a merry hall, and for a dwarf to compliment you on those is no mean thing. Please, sit," she said, gesturing to the chairs nearest the fire. Rhoswen composed herself onto one of the dwarf-sized stools, trying not to seem out of countenance in this somewhat diminutive world. "Gimli, a measure of that mead we brought, for the Lady, and for me. Gimli was telling me at dinner that you liked our story of Clever Idunn," Dís said, as Gimli went to pour drinks for the three of them.

"He said that you knew her, when you were a child," Rhoswen said, inching her stool closer to where the older dwarf sat.

"Gimli knew her when he was a child, too, though he would not remember her well. She was my nursemaid, and one of my dearest friends. Always very good with children, Idunn was. She would have had the keeping of my own boys, if she..." Dís took the cup that Gimli offered, smiling at him for a brief moment before staring back at the fire. "No matter. Those days are long gone, and my sons with them. That is a mother's burden, to lose her sons. Have you any children?"

"None, yet," Rhoswen said. "Though I hope to, soon, someday." She smiled and took a sip of the mead Gimli had pressed into her hand, pleasantly surprised by the warm taste of the honey.

"Take care your husband does not rob you of yours when their time comes," Dís said darkly, sipping at her own cup. "Mine were hardly grown when my brother decided they should go with him on his quest. And for that they call me Mother of the Faithful, for so they were, until their end, and his."

Rhoswen did not know that tale as well as others, but she remembered, distantly, in Dol Amroth, perhaps, hearing some bard of Dale tell the story of the retaking of the Mountain, how Thorin Oakenshield in his pride and vanity had closed his gates against the men of Dale and the elves of Mirkwood even as the Goblins closed in about them, and how many fell for that pride. His nephews, it seemed, had been among those at the battle. She'd have to hear the tale again some time. _I'd like to know more about this woman's sons. Or her brothers!_

"But they were his heirs," Dís said, remembering. "And they did not know Erebor as we did, and he thought it fitting that they should know the hardships it would take to win back the kingdom of thier fathers. My youngest, Kili, scarcely had his beard when they left. How they would joke with him about it! Kili of the Longbeards, with only a boy's scruff. At least my brother never said anything – that would have slain Kili. But Thorin wore his beard short, too. Until he reclaimed Erebor, he said, he would not wear the honors denied his fathers – or marry Idunn until he could make her his Queen." She looked at Rhoswen and smiled knowledgeably at the Gondorian's confusion. "No, he never married her – though I think Gimli tells the story somewhat differently," she accused, looking pointedly at her younger kinsmen.

"I tell it as I heard it from Balin!" Gimli defended vigorously.

"And Balin loved a tale with a good ending," Dís remembered. "Always something of a storyteller, he was. How did the story begin?"

Rhoswen was silent for a moment, expecting Dís to begin telling it, then, realizing that it had been a question for her to answer, struggled for a moment. "It began with a king…and a summons. He was looking for a wife."

"Thorin was scarcely a dwarf grown when my grandfather called for the contest – it was for Thorin's name-day. And it wasn't to find him a wife, either – my grandfather thought of that later, after Idunn had won. Did the story say that Thorin hated Idunn? Oh, yes, he did – or I should say he sincerely disliked her. I was never sure why before the contest – though after it was quite plain it was because she had made him look a little foolish, and Thorin hated to be thought a fool. It wasn't until many years after the sack of Erebor that he came to love her. But my brother was proud, and he would not take her to wife until he could make her the queen she had been promised she would be. Not that it would have mattered to Idunn. She was a woman of simple joys. Quick to smile, quick to laugh, quicker still to comfort. My brother needed that more than he knew."

"When did she die?"

"A goblin raid. She took an arrow…" Dís trailed off. "But what does it matter? It was a quick death, and a noble one, too. That was what drove my brother quicker to his quest. He felt that he'd betrayed her by waiting too long. It was hard for him to bear, more than most deaths are."

Rhoswen remembered Lottie, weeping for Lucan, and her heart plummeted in sympathy.

"I think that's a better story – but Balin would have disagreed. And he was our loremaster. I remember listening to his stories in the Blue Mountains when I was a child, during the Exile. He had a marvelous voice – for speaking or for singing. After we returned to Erebor, he made my brother sound more noble every time he told the tale, until I hardly knew the Thorin he would speak of. I suppose that is what comes of kings fallen in battle before their time."

_Or knights, or lovers,_ Rhoswen thought to herself, thinking again of Lucan and Lottie. "I'm sure they will write equally wonderful stories about you," she said diplomatically. "I'm sure you broke a few hearts in your day."

"And still break them!" Gimli supplied, making his lady laugh a little grimly.

"Ha! Leave love poetry to the very young, and the very foolish!" Dís declared. "Better if my sons had grown up with stories of the wise mothers and fathers of the Longbeards, rather than the warriors who went off to battles to prove themselves to fair maidens."

"Love does make fools of men and women both," Rhoswen agreed. "I know that I have been a fool many times over. And shall probably be again."

"Save your love for your sons and your city," Dís counseled. "It does precious good to anyone else otherwise. But enough of that. To business! What thought you of the court's proceedings today?"

_I am no diplomat, and she means to treat with me!_ Rhoswen realized with a shiver of surprise. _Yet this is what Ivriniel and Heledirwen do, and I must learn to dance the steps as they do._ "I was wondering, lady, what you meant when your herald spoke of 'a close friendship between the mountain and the city.' Surely you did not speak only of sending smiths to us, though we could not measure how helpful they have been thus far."

"I knew when I saw you that you listened well," Lady Dís said astutely, and Rhoswen felt a little relief that she could accomplish that little bit of statecraft. "In my grandfather's time we took boys and girls of the village of Dale for fosterage in the Kingdom under the Mountain, and taught them our arts, our songs. Perhaps it can be so again."

"Daughters, too? What would you teach daughters?"

Dís looked a little incredulous that this should even be a question. "What do they teach women in Gondor? Among the dwarves a woman may have any craft she desires – to be a smith, a carver of runes, a brewer of ales or a singer of songs. A mother, if she so chooses, though that is not as common as it is among the race of men. And that is no ill mark against her. Idunn's craft was drafting and drawing, though she was an uncommon good goldsmith, too, when the mood was upon her. My mother was an excellent weaver. I have several women in our company here. Riva over there is a member of my personal guard. Riva –" she said, calling to another of the dwarves sitting across the room, deep in conversation with the others. "What was your mother's profession?"

"She was a smith, Lady, and none finer," the woman said, rising from her chair with pride. "She made my blades, when first we came to Erebor."

"Yes, Riva came to us from the Blue Mountains, where they are not so free with their crafts," Dís said, looking on at the younger dwarf woman with the same kind of half-hidden pride a mother does, her smile barely there. "The farther the dwarf families moved away from the Kingdom of Durin, the more they forgot the ways of their fathers and mothers of old. But we do not speak often of them, do we, Riva?"

"Indeed we do not, Lady, and good riddance to them."

"You are a warrior?" Rhoswen asked, peering at the younger dwarf woman, who had by now joined them at the fire. The woman Riva nodded in greeting and agreement, and in the firelight, Rhoswen could see, now, the tools of her trade, the outlines of her weapons glinting at her hips with muted ferocity. Like all the dwarves she was strong shouldered, but her intricate braids were arranged differently than Dís's, looped back as if to keep them out of her face, and with only minimal ornament. _But Dís is a stateswoman, and this woman is a soldier. It would not be fitting to let her hair hang loose_, Rhoswen reminded herself.

"And you, Lady? What is your craft?" Rhoswen asked, turning back to Thrain's daughter.

She thought she saw Dís' eyes flicker with sadness, the question taking her aback. "I am of the Line of Durin," the woman said, after a moment's hesitation, a new steel in her voice. "My craft is what is required of me." There was a tense, brief silence, the Dwarf Queen staring into the fire as if she might be remembering something she did not care to. _I am woman enough to know what that answer means, even the ways of the dwarves are different than ours_, Rhoswen thought to herself. _How strange the lives of women are! And how much the same! What did she give up, for her family's sake?_

If she had looked, Dís would have seen that it was not only Rhoswen who paid close attention to her answer, but Riva as well. The moment passed, and her gaze drew away from the flames as if the question had never been asked.

"Yes, we have among our womenfolk all manner of professions. There's none finer with a pair of knives in a close fight than Riva here. Her father helped my brother take back Erebor. A great storyteller in his time, too, when I stop to think about it."

"He was that, Lady," Riva said, her solemn expression breaking a little to let a smile peek through. "We would have been glad to have him with us on the road here."

"There was…something else, too, that he did. Remind me."

"He was a toymaker, lady. A skill he could never teach me, though he's had hundreds of apprentices since."

Thrain's daughter nodded sagely. "So there you are. Your children could learn woodcraft, smithing, weapons, song. We would welcome the sons of the Prince with open arms. Or the sons of the King, when they come."

"If there is one thing these embassies has taught me, Lady Dís, it is that the wisest women and men know something of their neighbors near and far. I would not deprive my children of a chance to gain such wisdom. And I think the King would feel the same." _For did he not spend his childhood among the elves? And there was talk, too, of his having been to Rohan in his youth as well._

Dís smiled, and nodded. "You seem to have a deal of wisdom about you, Rhoswen of Gondor, for all that you're a young little thing. I hope the Lord Boromir knows what a gem he's gotten with you. Tell him so, from me."

"I shall, Lady," Rhoswen said, rising from her chair sensing that the audience was at an end. "Thank you for the mead. It was delicious."

"You'll have a bottle sent to you before we leave," Dís promised, rising from her chair as well, though with less dexterity than Rhoswen had, her face contorting for a moment into a grimace. Out of the corner of her eye she saw both Gimli and Riva move to help her, and the elderly dwarf matron stop them both with a quick gesture of her hand so she could rise under her own power, albeit slowly. _They love her dearly,_ Rhoswen realized. _She __**is**__ their queen, in all but name. Mother of the Faithful. They act like her children, taking care of her as they do. And she is like a mother to them, as much as she can be with her sons gone._

She stopped woolgathering long enough to take Dís's hand in farewell, bowing in the accepted fashion and accepting Gimli and Riva's escort to the door.

"The lady – her back… does it pain her?" Rhoswen asked, glancing for a moment back at the fire and the outline of the Lady, dark in front of the flames. She knew that the Lady would not look for help for it, so she would offer it where it might – might! – be accepted.

"Often," Riva said strongly, before Gimli could silence her, her voice quiet so her mistress could not hear. "A lifetime of shouldering other people's burdens," she added bitterly. "Though she will not readily admit the pain." She ignored the other dwarf's muted frown of displeasure and focused her intense gaze on Rhoswen, who nodded. _I know a little of that._

"I may have something for it. I'll give it to you before you leave – don't let me forget." Riva nodded, and made her bow, leaving Gimli and Rhoswen at the door. _I wouldn't want to face her in a fight_, Rhoswen mused, watching her go. _Thank goodness I have no enemies among the dwarves. And I think I've chosen my ally well. She doesn't seem to care whether it will lessen her dignity to ask help of an outsider – if only her Lady is helped by it._

"She liked you," Gimli said matter-of-factly before leaving her in the hallway. "The Lady. It may not have shown, but I know her ways, a little. She didn't think she would."

"I am sure I have you to thank for that, Lord Gimli. Thank you for convincing her otherwise," Rhoswen said genuinely and, on a whim, giving the gruff warrior a peck on the cheek. "She is lucky to have dwarves such as you in her domains."

And, letting Gimli color for a moment in peace, she turned and left, returning down the hallway to her marital suite.

Boromir was already in bed, though far away from sleep with a large and ponderous volume spread out on the sheets in front of him. "How was your meeting with the Lady Dís?" He asked, pulling back her side of the bedsheets as she untucked several pins from her hair and set about getting ready for bed.

"What would you say to sending our sons to be tutored at the Lonely Mountain?" Rhoswen asked, peering at him over her shoulder a moment as she shrugged out of her dress and into her nightgown.

"I'd remind you we don't have any sons yet," Boromir said blandly, setting aside his book and blowing out the candle at his side of the bed. "Though I'd welcome the opportunity to further discuss the matter when they do come to that age. For now I'll set for a discussion on how best to get them," he said, leaning over Rhoswen to kiss her.

Later, when their lovemaking was over and Boromir was sleeping silently beside her, Rhoswen couldn't help thinking back to what Dís had said concerning sons. _Take care your husband does not rob you of yours before their time. _

It was an uneasy sleep she found herself in that night.


End file.
